Hello all.
I built myself an equatorial platform for by Dob and it tracks surprisingly well. But not well enough for deep sky astrophotography. But I see no reason why I can't make it good enough to do that.
Some background. I built it from a design I found on the internet. Currently it uses a simple astromaster drive motor at 9.5 revs per hour. This tracks well but as it is a DC drive it does need adjusting as the load shifts.
I am now considering replacing this drive with a stepper motor, also I am making a declination drive adjuster that should give me +-2 degrees declination adjustment.
The ultimate aim is to use auto tracking using PHD2 guiding with guide camera.
So far from being a go-to mount, or having the capability of moving to anywhere, I simply want a solution that tracks using a guide camera.
My Equatorial platform gives me a maximum 1 and a half hours of RA tracking, currently it is incapable of Dec tracking but I'm designing a solution for it.
My question is.
Is ASTROEQ a possible design interface between the tracking camera and the drives (both of which will be stepper motors but would obviously be limited in their possible movements).
I'm at the early stages of the design and looking for help, so any would be greatly appreciated.