A smart barn door tracker with arduino

[arun289]

Hi,

I would like to share my design of a smart barn door tracker. It is a simple to build isosceles barn door tracker with tangent error correction through a Arduino micro-controller. I have shared all the details about the tracker including the mechanical design, electrical circuit and the software source code here:
https://barndoor.spa...ference-design/

If you are interested in the math and other details about a barn door tracker, more details are there in the blog. Also find an online calculator which helps in calculating various parameters while designing a barn door tracker. The blog is here:
https://barndoor.space/

 

M46 and M47 shot with this tracker.
135mm lens, ISO800, 15sec X 200 subs (50 minutes) exposure. Cannon 500D.

Comments and suggestions most welcome!

Regards,
Arun

 

 

[happy-kat]

That's a great build.

What is the longest exposure time your tried with good star shapes using your barn door?

Mine is still manual (have an Arduino board and already located some source code just not got round to it yet) and have good success with a 40mm lens with good 3 minute exposures just it isn't any good with a longer lens as I need that 10 second buffer.

[arun289]

3 hours ago, happy-kat said:

That's a great build.

What is the longest exposure time your tried with good star shapes using your barn door?

Mine is still manual (have an Arduino board and already located some source code just not got round to it yet) and have good success with a 40mm lens with good 3 minute exposures just it isn't any good with a longer lens as I need that 10 second buffer.

Thanks!

Regarding the exposure time, it depends on the focal length of the lens...
For 18mm and less it was around 2-3 minutes.
For 50mm around 1-2 minutes
For 135mm 15 seconds.

Better build quality will increase these times at least by a factor of 2.

Please do let me know if you need any help with the Arduino coding.

Regards,
Arun

[happy-kat]

Thank you.

Will you be adding a page to your blog to cover on the night setup?

(I use a red dot finder as far too may planes where I live for a laser).

Have you thought about in what areas you will be looking at for how to increase your exposure time with your lenses.

A 18mm lens with a smaller DSLR should theoretically give a max 22 second buffer (behind the movement) before star trails and kappa sigma clipping in Deep Sky Stack is quite good at tidy small elongation.

I very much enjoy using the barn door tracker as it is so satisfying using something you've made. I don't use a tripod I've built a stable platform into the barn door so the lot sits on a flat topped chair or table and it has it's own three leveling feet.

Look forward to seeing more images you've taken with yours.

[eavaria]

The page is down😕

I'm constructing one and didn't grab the code. Can you check if you can restore the page, or at least send me the code please @arun289 🥺

[rohanpai]

@arun289 - is it possible to restore your page or send me the details?

[Mick J]

Arun's last login was October 2018, earlier posts of his reference http://wondroussky.blogspot.com/  that may be helpful ?

 

Did find this an this    ain't the internet wonderful..............

Edited November 30, 2020 by Mick J

[rohanpai]

awesome. Thanks, Mick

[Mick J]

Your welcome @rohanpai, and welcome to SGL.   Looks a great project do keep us posted with your progress.