Autostar Operation; Autostar Navigation Exercise - Meade LT ACF Series Instruction Manual

AutoStar Operation

Fig. 8: The AutoStar Universe: The six primary cate-
gories listed in the Select Item menu of AutoStar.
It is important to understand that menu selections are
set in a loop (Fig. 10). This means that pressing the
Scroll Down key (Pg. 19, Fig. 5, 7) cycles down through
all the available options within a given category, then
returns to the first option. The Scroll Up key (Pg. 19,
Fig. 5, 7) cycles up through the options in the opposite
order. Note that this capability is a quick way to get
to an option that is near the bottom of the list. The
following example demonstrates this capability.
Example:
To navigate to the "Select Item: Setup" menu option
when the "Select Item: Object" menu is displayed:
1. Press the Scroll Down key four times or the
Scroll Up key once.
The screen in Fig. 9º displays two lines of information.
The top line shows the current menu level. The second
line displays an option which may be selected within
that menu level. Some options are choices that select
the next menu level down. The Scroll keys move up
and down within the list of available options, showing
one option at a time.
When the desired option is displayed on the second
line, press the ENTER key to choose that option and
move down one menu level.
Press the MODE key to leave a level; e.g., the wrong
menu option is chosen.
Important Note: No matter how many levels into
AutoStar are traveled, each press of the MODE
key moves up a level, until the top level, "Select
Item", is reached. Once in the Select Item level,
press MODE to return to the topmost level,
"Select Item: Object".

AutoStar Navigation Exercise

To demonstrate how the AutoStar menu structure
works, the following exercise calculates Sunset time
so an evening observing session can be planned.
To Calculate Sunset time:
1. Press the MODE key several times, until "Select
Item: Object" is displayed.
2. Press the Scroll Down key once to display the
"Event" option in the "Select Item" menu.
3. Press the ENTER key to choose the "Event"
option and move down a level. "Event: Sunrise"
is displayed.
4. Press the Scroll Down key once to display the
"Sunset" option in the Event menu.
5. Press the ENTER key to choose the "Sunset"
option and move down another level.
6. AutoStar calculates the Sunset time based on
the current date, time, and location. AutoStar
then displays the results of the calculation.
7. Press MODE once to start moving back up
through the AutoStar levels. The first level up
is the Event menu.
8. Press MODE again to move up another level.
This is the top level, "Select Item".
9. Press MODE again to return to the starting
point of "Select Item: Object".
Figure 9: AutoStar Levels
Figure 10:
Menus set in loop
23