G+_Dominick Valentic Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 One finder scope, a ball head and some coding to go. #barndoor-tracker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Reese Posted September 25, 2016 Share Posted September 25, 2016 I had to Google barn door tracker to figure out what this is. Sounds pretty awesome! This is for photographing stars, planets, etc? How does it know the movement? Is there a database somewhere saying how quickly and in what direction it needs to move? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_David Wiggins Posted September 26, 2016 Share Posted September 26, 2016 I only know because I have a cousin that is very much into photography. He's been threatening to buy one for star shots for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Dominick Valentic Posted October 1, 2016 Author Share Posted October 1, 2016 Ben Reese it's actually pretty simple (hopefully if I did my job correctly)... The earth rotates and it's axis of rotation just happens to point towards the north star(Polaris) or pretty damn close. You point the hinge towards that star keeping the open end of the hinge towards the East. As the the stepper motor turns the threaded rod the hinge opens at the same rate of the stars moving across the sky keeping the camera pointed at it. As for the rate, smarter people than me have done the math ,but basically the way it's set up 1RPM should be about right. The hard part for me is going to be actually pointing that hinge at the north star. If I don't get that right the rest won't matter. Hopefully the sky's clear up soon and I'll be able to test it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Dominick Valentic Posted October 1, 2016 Author Share Posted October 1, 2016 David Wiggins I've seen these ingress you can buy outright but that sort of takes the fun out it lol.... I've been wanting to build one of these since I was a kid but back then it was all Radio Shack parts then for the driving it.. That Arduino should make things a bit easier especially for tweaking the speed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Reese Posted October 1, 2016 Share Posted October 1, 2016 Dominick Valentic awesome! That makes sense. How does Magnetic North compare to polar north (or Polaris)? Is it close enough to use the compass in your phone to line it up? Just a thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_David Wiggins Posted October 1, 2016 Share Posted October 1, 2016 Or a pair of compasses(one at each end) to get a good bearing? Granted I'm just spitting air on that, but it seems two points of reference for aiming at Polaris. (I may be too heavily influenced by Stargate: six points around the destination, one for point of origin) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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