Hope that helps to put your fears to rest. Hence why I'm saying that there's nothing to worry about. The driver that I've created uses these commands to communicate with the scope. There is a document from Meade that shows details how the commands work. For the majority of the commands it's the same. In this case, it will simply be that the scope will ignore said command or interpret the command incorrectly. The devil is in the detail of specific implementations and there may be some defects in the handboxes which could cause the wrong command to be sent to the scope. Whilst there are a few differences in the way that the commands for for the LX-90 and the LX200, most of the commands are the same and are directly compatible. The reason is that the specific driver that you are referring to is old, and doesn't really work all that well. I also see on the ASCOM Downloads instructions NOT to use the 497 on the 200GPS and vice-versa.

I see on the ASCOM Forum that many astro manufacturer's ASCOM drivers are flakey, and the poor user often has considerable trouble correctly uninstalling and reinsta lling before the thing works correctly. I was wondering what sort of interest there would be for my fellow Meade users to get some much better support for our scopes. My solution, I'm in the process of creating a new driver for the Meade AutoStar #497 and AudioStar. (Can't remember to be honest, but I know I don't trust it.

However, it turned out that the aforementioned driver doesn't implement the ability to set the date and time, and I think it does something funky with the site too.

That way both the PC and Autostar are in sync. Well, I started writing a little program that would allow me to set the date, time, site lat and long using a GPS connected to my PC. However, it's old and you can only connect one piece of equipment at a time oh and certain programs like WIFI Scope, Sharpcap, Sequence generator pro all have their functionality limited because the driver doesn't implement everything.

For anyone that uses a Meade based telescope with ASCOM, I'm sure that you are all aware that the 'Meade LX200 Classic and Autostar #494, #495, and #497 (combined telescope/focuser, 5.0.4)' driver is the one to use.

Download meade 495 autostar manual