Barn Door Tracker Plans

Ed and dennis used parts they had lying around.

Barn door tracker plans.

Make sure everything is square and moves freely clap the 2 hinged boards together and shout action a few times like they do when making movies if it makes a nice clack sound it should work well for a star tracker now measure 228 55mm from the center of the hinge pin down the middle of the board and mark the drive rod holes do this on. You can however make a 6 wide board and use a 4 hinge but you may give up some stability. The updated design has the camera mounted on the side of the top board. Nyx tracker the only inexpensive ready built barn door tracker of which i am aware is the 89 00 nyx tracker from nyx tech.

The nyx tracker is a motorized barn door tracker used for astrophotography. There are plenty of solutions described out there on the internet. His plans were first published in sky telescope magazine in april 1975. Gary seronik s analog barn door tracker but there s a catch.

Inexpensive and budget friendly it is useful for people interested in astrophotography but not ready to spend on expensive equipment. Easelife 12 ft double door sliding barn door hardware kit heavy duty ultra hard sturdy easy install slide smoothly quietly fit double 36 wide door 12ft track double door kit 4 7 out of 5 stars 665 79 99 79. The barn door tracker was created by george haig. That means we want to spin our barn door tracker at a rate of 360 degrees every 24 hours which comes out to be 0 25 degrees per minute.

I built the tracker shown here based on one recently made by ohio telescope maker ed jones and on a platform built by sky telescope s dennis di cicco in the mid 1980s. Modified versions of the tracker were published in the magazine s february 1988 and june 2007 editions. This tracking mount follows the stars as they move through the sky. If you want a barn door but don t wish to build one from scratch this is your only option.

A straight drive screw turned at a constant rate won t produce a constant angular motion. First cut the 500mm length in half and mount the hinge. Assembly setting up your door tracker. It s called the tangent error and here s how some of our favorite diy barn door trackers solved it.

The nyx tracker uses a curved drive screw which eliminates the need for a double arm design. Cut your two blocks of wood pieces into 13 x 4 pieces.