Today, I released my OnStep Python API on Github. This API allows commands to be issued from any Python 3.x program to an OnStep controlled telescope.
This allows a lot of use cases, for example, testing certain scenarios, or automating certain tasks.
Several examples are provided as starting points on how to write your own programs.
Patches for features, and fixes are welcome.
An Artificial Star is a point source of light. It is used to simulate a real star indoors, so you can collimate your telescope's optics indoors and/or during daylight.
Commercial artificial stars, such as this Hubble Optics one, cost $25 or more, and their main feature is a small plate that has precision holes of 50 micron up to 250 microns.
You can make your own artificial star, which is very close in function to the commercial ones.
You can watch this short 4 minute video on how I did it, and read on for detailed instructions.
After nine months of modifying the OnStep open source telescope controller to run on the cheap STM32 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, it is time to reap the fruits of this long labour: I have an OnStep powered mount ...
In these pages, I describe how to make a Do It Yourself (DIY) Telescope Controller. That is, a piece of electronics that would at a minimum drive motors on the telescope to track the sky.
The features should be:
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