Before I can answer that, you'll need to learn the difference between RA and
hour angle. They're nearly identical, both measued in hours, with lines of
both running along celestial north/south, from one celestial pole to the
other. But RA is (nearly) fixed relative to the stars, while hour angle is
fixed relative to your location on the earth. The line running from the
pole, through the zenith, and on to the opposite pole (below the horizon),
is the zero hour angle line. The numbers increase to the west. So another
way of saying it is that the hour angle of a star is (very nearly) the
number of hours since the star reached its highest point in the sky.

Don't ask me to explain the "(nearly)"s in that paragraph. We've had enough
confusion for one day ;-)

There is one other way to park with the keypad, but it's not easy. First,
you need to know the sidereal time (this is the RA of the 0 hour angle line,
so it's the RA of due south (if in the northern hemisphere). Sidereal time
is available through the keypad*). Then see section G.2.b of the manual-
you can enter RA/dec coordinates, and make the scope goto that position. So
enter the sidereal time for RA, enter 0° for dec, and then send the scope
there. This is what the ASCOM park function does.
*to find the sidereal time, press the mode key until the time is displayed.
"Local" is your local time, but on the next line, "side" is the sidereal
time.

-John


>
>Thanks John! So, the questions follow:
>
>1 - I assume there is no way to make it go to 0 Dec 0 RA except driving it
>with the arrow keys, correct? What I really do when I leave it for the
>night is just go to Polaris. It just seemed like an easy thing to do.
>
>2 - Don just gave me a script to park it using the laptop and the ASCOM
>driver. So, Don, if you're out there, I looked up the park() Method in the
>ASCOM standard and got:
>
>Telescope.Park() Method
>Move the telescope to its park position and stop tracking motion
>
>Syntax
>Telescope.Park()
>
>The method syntax has these parts:
>Part Description
>Return (Nothing) Does not return a value.
>
>Remarks
>Raises an error if there is a problem communicating with the telescope or
>if parking fails.
>
>So, since the LX200 Classic does not have a park function, what does this
>method make the telescope do exactly? How does it know what the "park
>position" is?
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>
>Nope, no park function on the classic (except on the 16" model).
>
>-John
>

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