Today was an interesting day spent at Curdridge Observatory where Tom has been designing and building a Dome Rotator for Greg’s new dome at The New Forest Observatory, the system that is to be computer controlled will allow the dome to automatically rotate to allow the opening in the dome to be in the correct position in relation to the alignment of the mount during times of observation and imaging using the new WASP imaging system which is mounted on a Paramount ME. The system is based around 2 stepper motors which have neoprene rubber drive wheels which will pinch against a track on the dome, these are controlled by a Microchip PIC microcontroller which is instructed via USB using Tom’s bespoke dome controller software using the ASCOM instruction set. Here are a couple of images of before after and one of the motors.
