Guest peepshow Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 My BDT now has a mini Eq mount on the camera table. RA and DEC axis will be coupled to digital rotary gauges. ( Thanks to Martyn who drew my attention to them). The mini Eq mount is the round thingy in the photos. Rotary gauges not yet installed nor the drive screw and its motor. Everything is adjustable with sliding sections. RA and Dec will be setup before the tracker motor is switched on. Hopefully this will enable me to home onto DSO's faster and easier.....well we all live in hopes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Very nice project Richard. Looks quite an intricate mechanism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peepshow Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 (edited) Barn door tracker now fitted with digital rotary readouts for RA and DEC. They are the two blue thingies with the green Ethernet cable connectors. Also fine grub screws adjustment added for polar alignment. The whole weight of the tracker taken on a 1/4 inch dia ball bearing. ( at bottom left hand side in photo) It's beginning to look more like a time travelling machine. Maybe I ought to say goodbye before I go. Edited August 10, 2013 by peepshow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawson Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 It looks amazing, and the engineering design and construction is astronomical. To be honest i still don't really understand what it does! Is it a motorised equatorial mount for widefield imaging? Very impressive! And to think on radio 4 the other day someone was saying most households don't own a soldering iron; you clearly have a whole workshop! James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peepshow Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 Well James, it was constructed with a hacksaw, a drilling machine and a little sweat at times....oh, and not forgetting the occasional swear word. Barn door trackers are normally used for dslr cameras, mounted on a simple ball and socket joint or pan and tilt head. No RA or Dec adjustment, just used for star tracking. Incidentally a type 4 tracker, if built well and with correct motor drive, is accurate to within 1 arc second over a 2 hour tracking period. Not bad,. eh? But I wish to experiment, firstly with a long exposure modified SPC900 webcam and a big variety of lenses that I have, including a old 4 inch Epidiascope lens !! For easy of sighting I added the RA and DEC systems with their 2 digital read outs. I may mount a small Cassegrain too in the future as the build is quite steady, being all metal. All very unorthodox, but then that's me. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 Wow, that looks like a very sophisticated piece of kit with some hi tec gadgetry. 1 arcsec over 2 hours is fantastic. Nice to see such a good DIY project. Well done Richard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DaveJW Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 Amazing indeed! Very interested to see how the images turn out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peepshow Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 (edited) Very interested to see how the images turn out. Well if it doesn't track correctly I might take it to an sculpture gallery and tell 'em it came from an American film set. I shall entitle it, 'Star Track.' ;-) Might get a huge price for it and then go and buy a pro mount. :-) Edited August 12, 2013 by peepshow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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