3D Print This Tiny Observatory to Get Started with Astrophotography

If you're anything like me, you've looked at those amazing pictures of stars and assumed that they required a whole pile of expensive equipment. But the truth is that most modern digital cameras can capture photos of the stars, as long as you can control the shutter to allow for long exposure times. That's because astrophotography is all about giving the relatively dim light of stars time to show up. If you want to take advantage of that fact in the most adorable way possible, you can 3D print MattHh's tiny observatory.

Pi-lomar is a small Raspberry Pi-based observatory that can move to target specific astronomical bodies and capture photos of them with its camera. It has two motorized axes, so it is capable of panning and tilting automatically to locate specific points in the sky if you plug the device's location into the software. The camera is an affordable model that won't compete with a full-frame DSLR, but it is capable of capturing stars and planets because the software can leave the shutter open as long as necessary. And the motorized axes can compensate for the rotation of the Earth, so you won't get those pesky star trails.

The best part is that Pi-lomar looks awesome, because MattHh designed it to look like a quintessential observatory. The outer stucture and the internal frame are 3D-printable. Inside are a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, a Pimoroni Tiny2040 development board, a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera with 16mm telephoto lens, and two stepper motors with DRV8825 driver boards.

The Raspberry Pi 4 runs the Pi-lomar software, which controls the stepper motors through the Pimoroni Tiny2040. MattHh programmed the software to work in the northern hemisphere, so it might need some tweaks if you intend to use it in the southern hemisphere. After configuring the location, you can use the software to select a target. Pi-lomar will then track that target and capture a series of 10-second (or longer) exposure photos.

All of those folders go into local storage where you can retrieve them using SSH or whatever file transfer software you prefer. The raw photos won't look like much, but you can perform "stacking" processing to get some very respectable images.

Not bad for an observatory that you can fit in a backpack!