jimao22

The project was forgotten for a long while, because of lack of time and lost of interest. As a result, this nice mount goes to a close friend of mine (the one who made the motor control with the 555 circuit) who had in mind to upgrade the controller with an ARDUINO system. But he agreed to give me the mount in a win-win trade we did. So here begin the story of the mount for me. My friend's task was to start and finish the ARDUINO upgrade - a better way to control the mount and an easy way to change and upgrade the tracking. He did his job very well, according with my requirements - 2 forward speeds (sidereal and lunar) and one backward (very high speed back). Also, he installed in the electrical system 2 limit switches to avoid accidents when motor is at the end of the run. My task was to improve the mechanical part of the project, with the goal to use on this mount a small telescope or a RFT and a camera - of course, obtaining exposures of 5 minutes at least. I wanted to use ready-made parts and components because of lack of time and because I was sure the result will be better. i found a good idea is to use parts from Skywatcher Star Adventure,a good mini-mount with parts that can be purchased separately. In order to have a functional mount, I needed a tripod, a wedge and a "L" shape adjustable support (see down bellow).

Everything was installed on a photo tripod and the stepper was controlled by a 555 timer circuit. The speed of the motor could be adjusted very easy with a potentiometer. The accuracy was not an issue due to the fact he wanted to use a DSLR with a short focal length. First pictures with this nice set-up are shown here.

Hi, I want to show you an ATM project on the run, started by a friend of mine and continued by me and another friend of mine. The initiator of this project have in mind to create a barn door for the beginning. The idea evolved and at some point he said is a better idea to try "clone" the Astrotrac - which was a new astro-item at that time (2013), but he goes further and made a mount operated by a stepper motor by friction. He made the project and he had access to a CNC machine and everything was made under his supervision. Initial drawings and final ones are down bellow.

Right, sorry I missed that! Can I post it again in a new topic or is to late?

The Moon from this evening (25-th of December). 40 images stacked from 100, through my deep-sky set-up. Atik 460EX + MN190/EQ6 belt drive. Acquisition with MaximDL, stacked with Autostakkert and post processed with Maxim again.