adder001

Thanks for that info. See what you mean about the guiding maths, I think I will leave that to the software already written for it, way too complicated for my programming skills. Good to know that the Pi can handle it though.

Cheers

Thanks for sharing that info. That is a very nice idea It never occurred to me to try the Pi as a guider also to drive the dec axis with a motor also. I am mainly using my EQ2 mount now solely for my DSLR I hardly ever put the scope on it as I find the images are far more rewarding and I can see more by using a camera than with my scope.

I am definitely going to use some of your techniques there especially driving the dec axis.   I am very familiar with using python and the raspberry Pi but I am not not familiar with any guiding software so I would have to learn that first.

Just a question though - I am understanding this correctly that the PI is running the guide software not the laptop?

I think my version would be probably using stepper motors attached to RA and DEC drives and perhaps use python to control them and some kind of guide camera from the Pi. It would be nice if it could be guided using python but I am not sure how that could be achieved (maybe I am getting ahead of myself here ).  I think that I now have another project on the cards even before my current one is finished, The wife is gonna kill me!!

Anyway the pictures below are something that I made a while ago using a raspberry Pi B+ and a touchscreen LCD and the Raspberry Pi camera.

It gave surprising results, obviously only good enough for Lunar and planets etc but amazing for a cheap basic camera and was good fun to make too.

Wow that is brilliant. I love tinkering and I am in the process of making a ioptron type startracker using a raspberry pi zero and a stepper motor to attach my dslr to.

I also have a eq2 mount and suffer the polar alignent probs. I would be reallly interested in a few more details of your setup maybe some pictures or diagrams etc, I would love to do something similar.

Thanks for sharing anyway

Heres mine. A bit pathetic really when compared to some of the scopes on show here but when you add in an enthusiatic 9 year old and it's brilliant. This was looking at Saturn under a really dark sky and it was fantastic.