05/18/19

Evolution EAA Computer Mount

Due to the horrible light pollution here in San Jose, CA I decided to try out EAA- Electronically Assisted Astronomy. Traditional astro photography (AP) is actually really hard and time consuming. EAA is a lot easier and lot faster, although the results aren’t as nice as you can get with AP.

One of the big advantages of EAA is you can use a simple Alt-Az mount like my Celestron Evolution EdgeHD 8″ SCT since you’re taking dozens of shorter pictures rather than much longer photos which require excellent tracking (polar alignment) and stability.
Continue reading →

05/4/17

ESP-DSC: Making it work

So my initial testing of an ESP-12E showed that it couldn’t reliably keep up with two 10K PPR encoders (40K count). I discussed this project a great deal with my fellow astronomers on CloudyNights. After doing a lot more research and testing I’ve determined that the ESP8266 even when running at 160Mhz just can’t keep up with two 10K PPR encoders. Continue reading →

03/19/17

ESP-DSC Works Not Well!

So yesterday I was all happy that I got my prototype ESP-DSC working. This ended up being short lived as I realized this morning that while it does technically work, the ESP8266 can’t keep up with two medium resolution (2,500 CPR) encoders.

Ironically, I found out that the code was too slow when I started to optimize the code and I realized that the code I has was very very conservative. My original optimization was to speed it up, but maintain that conservative ethos. I figured while I was editing the code, I might as well also add a test to see if the ESP-12F was dropping interrupts… Continue reading →

03/18/17

ESP-DSC Works!

Spent most of my post-St. Patricks day writing code for the ESP-DSC. The big question was always does the ESP-12E have enough horsepower to handle both the encoders as well as doing all the WiFi/communications. So far, I’ve bench tested a pair of 2.5k CPR encoders which translate into 10K encoders after quadrature decoding. Continue reading →

03/16/17

New low cost digital setting circles: ESP-DSC

So a few years ago, I announced TeensyDSC, project that brings telescope digital setting circles to the iPad and Android devices using WiFi. I’ve been using my TeensyDSC successfully with my telescope and SkySafari on an iPad for a few years, but one thing always bothered me about it: the “COGS” (cost of goods sold) of the TeensyDSC was really expensive: nearly $100. A lot of that cost was in two parts: the Teensy 3.1 ($20) and RN-XV WiFi module ($35).
Continue reading →

11/23/14

TeensyDSC – it works!

So last night I was finally able to test my custom digital setting circles setup on my AD12… it worked great! Â I used the AstrosystemsÂ 10K encoder kit with the TeensyDSC and SkySafari on my iPad. Â Here’s the photos of my setup:

My Digital Settings Circles setup using SkySafari on the iPad

Alt encoder and Wireless DSC module powered by a USB battery pack

Syn Fin dot Net

Streaming Thoughts from Syn to Fin

Tag Archives: astronomy