I remember seeing this problem described several times over the past year. I
really never thought that it could happen to me and so I didn't pay much
attention to the possible causes and solutions. GUESS WHAT! Skies were
perfectly clear tonight in Austin, and I invited several people over to look
at Jupiter and Saturn through my 12" LX-200. After booting up, the keypad
controller went through its usual opening sequence normally. After reaching
the TELESCOPE/OBJECT LIBRARY screen, imagine my horror as the telescope
started slewing straight down! It started off at a slow speed, but it got
faster and faster as the OTA moved farther "south" until I had to turn off
the main power switch. The keypad buttons had absolutely no effect. I
rebooted but the same thing happened over and over. Interestingly, the scope
moved up ("north") one or two times as well but mostly it went south (as did
my evening). I tried switching from DC to AC power...same result. In the
words of the little girl in Poltergeist, "What's happening??"

David Abrams
Austin, Texas

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