Microcontroller Based Star Seeker

The project is intended for creating automatic application for users who wish to track stars without the need of adjusting the telescope manually.

The construction of a telescope mount is involved in this project which automatically rotates a telescope to track a star selected by the user. A given list of stars would be tracked by user or input their own data for the telescope mount to track their own desired star. The two main components of the star seeker are the mechanical construction of the mount and the software required in accepting user input and operating the mount itself.

Along with mount is the addition of electrical components such as LCD screen, keypad, motor, pulleys, and the Mega32 MCU. The user input is accepted by the software that operates the motor, finds coordinates of a given star, and calculates local sidereal time. The mount was constructed out of scrap metal scavenged from machine shop, which makes the project fit with budget constraints.

A controller for both the user input and the motor turning the telescope is acted by the MCU while the LCD screen prints out prompts for certain data for the user.

Rest of the project