SAA 100 Best DSOs


Fix Up Your CG-5 !

AstronomyBoy.com
Search AstronomyBoy with Google



Getting Started



CG-5/LX70 Mount Fixes



SkyTee-2 Mount Rebuild



Solar Eclipse — 2017



SAA 100 Deep Sky List



Constellation Portraits



Barn Door Tracker



Comet Hale-Bopp



Homemade Eyepieces



EQ Mount Tutorial



Millennium Rant



Who Is Astronomy Boy?



Contact Astronomy Boy



Home


Build a Barn Door Tracker

Manually Operated Version

Barn Door Mount
Click for larger image.
Click here for the Motorized Version
Barn Door Mount
Click for larger image.
 
Barn Door Mount
Click for larger image.


BARN DOOR INFORMATION
Introduction
Drive Mechanism
Drive Electronics
Latitude Wedge
Camera Platform
Component Sources
Manually Operated Version
Helpful Links
ASTROPHOTOS
Comet Hale-Bopp Photos
Constellation Portraits
These are photos of my earlier barn door mount used mainly for photos of Comet Hale-Bopp. Here are two nice photos made with this mount.

For convenience and stability, I designed the mount to sit on the trunk of my car. A tripod made of 2 x 4 lumber supported the mount. To make polar alignment as easy as possible, I calculated the lengths of the tripod legs so that the camera platform was tilted at an angle of a little less than 43°, which was the latitude of my (then) home in New Hampshire. Adjustable feet allowed for fine tuning when aligning the mount with Polaris. I adjusted the tripod until I could see Polaris through a Burger King soda straw glued to the mount, parallel to the hinges. This has proved accurate enough for exposures in the 1 to 4 minute range. Tracking was accomplished by continuously turning a long ¼-inch screw at a rate of one revolution per minute while the exposure was in progress.

There is a motorized version of this mount.



Send E-mail to Astronomy Boy






Privacy Policy