/barn-door-tracker

All the things for my barn door tracker. WIP!

Primary LanguagePythonOtherNOASSERTION

When taking pictures of the stars you will get star trails if you don't compensate for the earth's movement. In some cases this may be a desired shot! It can be a pretty cool picture. But for deep sky imaging it's not desired.

I am just getting into astrophotography. I know it can be expensive to buy gear and I don't know, well, anything yet. To get started and start learning I made a couple prototype isosoles barn door trackers, one mechanical and one motorized like this, to prove it works. Then I decided to get more precise and 3D print things.

All docs are in docs/ and there is an Index. My goal is to write up everything you need in order to print, assemble, and use this tracker. Hope you find some value in this!

Clear Skies!

Tracker Explained

Posted an 8 min video giving an overview of my setup.

Barn Door Tracker Overview

Tracker in Action

Tracker in Action All setup and ready to go. Battery on left leg, intervalometer on right, and 15 lb weight in the backpack.

M42 Canon EOS Rebel SL2, 300mm Lens, ISO1600
866 x 5 second lights (1 hr 12 min 7 sec)
DeepSkyStacker and GIMP.

Flame and Horsehead Nebula Canon EOS Rebel SL2, 300mm Lens, ISO3200
621 x 5 second lights (50 min 50 sec)
DeepSkyStacker and Affinity Photo.