Tuesday 9 June 2015

Auto Guided Barn Door Tracker - Arduino

Been building a Barn door tracker for Astrophotography that is accurate and also auto guides in both RA and DEC axis using an adapted webcam as a guide scope, The barn door is controlled by an Arduino Uno running two small stepper motors (12v Mini Stepper Motor's 28BYJ-48), this is interfaced with PHD Guiding software using an Ascom driver created for the mount, I'm happy with progress so far, Easy project to carry out that can be done over a couple of weekends, I have not seen any other barn door tracker online capable of auto guiding so maybe this one is a first, If there is enough interest I might do a write up on it at a later date and provide links to my Google drive for the Arduino sketch and Ascom driver.
DEC Axis
Underside
RA and DEC axis