Turning Stepper Motor Off

@inq Yep, used to own one. That finely balanced works because there is a really big heavy gear keeping it still. The balance is to keep motor current low so batteries last all night.

Similar but much smaller and alt-azimuth vs german equatorial. Think video camera not newtonian telescope.

Interesting brain storming session - like a machine gun.  I'm worn out.

Posted by: @darup

On the other hand, there is no known recorded capture of a Jack-A-Lope!  對於那個很抱歉

I prefer the X-15 Cruise Basselope 🙂

@inq Cost for an entry level decent one was about $2,000, no idea now with everything going up, really well built amateur telescope mounts can get into the low 5 figures. Here is a mid price telescope mount, that aint going to fit in my backpack. Really good ones go for double that and more.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1599592-REG/celestron_91531_cgx_l_goto_eq_telescope.html

@will You "Win!" I don't have a picture.

Posted by: @zander

@inq Cost for an entry level decent one was about $2,000, no idea now with everything going up, really well built amateur telescope mounts can get into the low 5 figures. Here is a mid price telescope mount, that aint going to fit in my backpack. Really good ones go for double that and more.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1599592-REG/celestron_91531_cgx_l_goto_eq_telescope.html

Those are a lot more complicated than you indicated. 3-5 degrees seems awfully sloppy for a telescope of any real power. And for very powerful ones you'd also want to have automatic movement for azimuth and elevation which would depend on what you're looking at and where you are in the world.

Pretty ambitious !

@will I am pretty sure I said video camera, or just camera with a long telescopic lens. When horizontal the energy needed to rotate it horizontally is near zero, but tilt the long lens up or down and the energy needed goes up FAST. By turning off the stepper and holding position with a detent that is spring driven, the power is only on while moving which is the equivalent of a duty cycle of maybe 1%. In other words it doesn't move often. My commercial unit uses 4 C cells I think and it can last a long time, I have never run out so don't really know.

@darup 

It's from the "Bloom County" cartoons by Berkeley Breathed from back in the 1980's. Her name was Rosebud.

Posted by: @darup

@will You "Win!" I don't have a picture.

Here you go ...

@will I don't have any really informative pictures, but this is the best I can do. The first picture is looking straight down at the bottom, you can see the camera 1/4-20 standard mount.that is the panning platform. I don't recall how far it can pan but it doesn't go past 0 . Now I am curious so will get mine out and take some pictures.

@will yea, but they shortened the season on them.

@will It"s not a telescope, it's a camera.

@will As I said NOT a telescope, just a camera. Land based tripods are orders of magnitude simpler than full german equatorial. However one of the most common raspi projects or arduino is to build what is known as a barn door tracker. There has even been a couple of refinements on it now so that it competes very well with a full german for DSLR size instruments. I might try one of those but astrophotography is very complex and time consuming and since they grassed over the mine tailings we now get clouds at night. 

Posted by: @zander

@will I don't have any really informative pictures, but this is the best I can do. The first picture is looking straight down at the bottom, you can see the camera 1/4-20 standard mount.that is the panning platform. I don't recall how far it can pan but it doesn't go past 0 . Now I am curious so will get mine out and take some pictures.

 

Yeah, seems to me I've 3D printed something like that years ago. But I hardly ever take pictures any more so I never put them to use. Just use a normal tripod for shooting videos of my completed projects in operation.

Maybe I'll go looking for it again if I ever get around to making a robot, it'd be useful for a camera and equally so for an HC-SR04 sensor (or the like). Seems to me they were so light that I just used 9G servos for them.

@will This is my commercial unit, I want to build one for a photography friend of mine. His camera is lighter, and his lens is shorter and lighter. I am pushing the limits with mine. The switch on the back says 340 degrees. Of course it has a wifi unit so I can be 100 yards or more away controlling the mount and the camera. On my camera all functions are available but one and it is not important. So how did your mental image match to the real thing?