Raspberry Pi camera with a touchscreen for astronomy

[adder001]

Hi Folks,

With all this miserable weather and clouds I have not been able to use my telescope so I turned my attention to building a webcam camera for my telescope. I love to tinker with raspberry pi's and other electronics so I thought that I would share it here so that other people can have a look and build it or maybe modify or improve it.

I know that similar things are available for purchase but there is nothing quite like building your own and getting it exactly as you want it.

Also the camera unit is independent from the touchscreen so that when it is pressed to take a photo there is no vibration on the telescope.

I have posted a few videos on youtube of the build and jupiter and the moon through the webcam.

I hope that this will be of use to people who may want to do something similar.

Here is the link 

 

 

 

[riklaunim]

You can also use Windows tablet with USB OTG to use normal astro-cameras too

[wimvb]

Nice build! Next step: a RasPi autoguider?

[adder001]

5 hours ago, riklaunim said:

You can also use Windows tablet with USB OTG to use normal astro-cameras too

yeah I looked into a webcam and using my hudl2 tablet but per usual the hudl2 doesnt support usb otg, at least not without rooting it anyway.

cheers

[adder001]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Nice build! Next step: a RasPi autoguider?

Thanks but I don't have a motorised mount but if I did I bet it wouldn't be that difficult to programme the pi to do that, that is one of the fantastic things about the Pi. They are so cheap and easy to programme and there is loads of free information and tutorials etc. out there. I would probably use Python to pulse the GPIO pins as necessary to drive a motor to the RA and DEC values.

[Stavros]

I really enjoyed watching that, I may build one myself. 

[cjdawson]

How about a version using a Pi 2, and a couple of web cams, and telescope control too and do the following....

1. Camera 1, attached to guide scope, and running though something like Lin_Guider as an auto guider.

2. Camera 2 attached to main scope.

Rs-232 comms routine built in somehow.  Then...

 

Use Camera 2, with Batinov mask maybe with a motor controller, to place and remove the mask.  When mask is in focus an auto focus routine executes.  Programs already exist that helps with that.

remove mask, then take long exposures with camera 2.

Rs-232 could also execute telescope control commands for goto, etc.

Yep. we're talking an almost completely robotic astro imaging setup.

I'm sure that with a few more modifications you could create a completely automatic observatory.

[riklaunim]

5 minutes ago, cjdawson said:

How about a version using a Pi 2, and a couple of web cams, and telescope control too and do the following....

1. Camera 1, attached to guide scope, and running though something like Lin_Guider as an auto guider.

2. Camera 2 attached to main scope.

Rs-232 comms routine built in somehow.  Then...

"Webcams" aren't for long exposure. You could use DS cameras that can be controlled from ARM Linux, but still for ~50 GBP you can get a Chinese x86 Windows tablet with OTG that can run ASCOM guider and DS camera with available and proven software. There is also PHD2 for Linux and it does support ARM. Among cameras QHY and ZWO seems to have good Linux support. Among planetary also Point Grey and IDS look good too. But still I keep astronomy on Windows while doing everything else on Linux

[wimvb]

I think that this thread is more appropriate in the DIY astronomy forum. Anyway: have a look at Piastrohub. Some of the things that are suggested here, are allready realised in that project.

 

Cheers,