Death scrolling through Twitter during the pandemic lead to something cool and new for me!
Greg The Maker posted this really cool project that involved 3D printing, stepper motors and building a control board for OnStep.
This was an amazing project that tied together my current love for astronomy and astrophotography!
The project is based on OnStep controlling stepper motors to control the DEC and RA axis of a telescope mount. Inside Greg has designed some amazing parts to accomplish astrophotogray quality tracking. I have taken pictures up to one minute in length at a focal length around 500mm.
The camera is a RaspberryPi HQ camera with a C mount to Canon FD lens adapter. I was able to use old school manual focus Canon FD lenses that you can find on ebay for a really good price!
The 3D pringing i did in Prusament PETG Galaxy Black. I love this filament!
Working with stepper motors was a new adventure for me. The learning curve was pretty steep with all of the soldering and programming of the Arduino boards.
The engineering that Greg put into this was amazing! The bearing assemblies and thought that went into this project was just amazing!
More photos here: