For ScopeX 2015, I started a project at House4Hack called PiScope. Many House4Hack members were involved in bringing this project to life.

What is PiScope?

PiScope is an open source project to do basic astrophotography using a RaspberryPi, Arduino, 3d-printed parts, and a telescope. When it is done we hope to have autotracking via OpenCV working and at the moment can use a keyboard to jog the telescope view, take photos, take videos, and stream images to a laptop via a wifi hotspot. It also has a neat little screen where everyone can see the eyepiece view. This is quite handy for star parties.

Lots of people pitched in to make this happen and was quite a fun project to work on – some woodwork, 3d design, printing, electronics, software all mixed together to make this work.

Here are some very early photos taken with the PiScope. Note: The image quality is not indicative of what PiScope is capable of.

Check out some project details on the House4Hack PiScope page, including the presentation at ScopeX 2015. The source code, 3d printer files, Arduino firmware, etc. are available in the GitHub repository for PiScope.