This Raspberry Pi Device Points Out the Planets for You
Beth Cotterell designed a telescope model that automatically moves to show celestial bodies.
When you stare into the night sky, there's a wide array of stars and planets to gaze at, not to mention our moon. Many of us, however, are content to keep our heads horizontal most of the time, glancing up once in a while to perhaps think “that’s pretty neat.” But for astronomy enthusiasts who want an easier way to know where to look, Beth Cotterell (AKA “snowbiscuit") has just the Raspberry Pi project for you.
The aptly named Planet Finder uses a Raspberry Pi to pull data from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) via the AstroQuerry library. This returns the azimuth (angle from north) of a certain body, as well as the altitude (angle from horizontal) based on the location of an observatory coded into the query. With that data in hand and a small compass attached for alignment, the pointer is able to manipulate its telescope shaped pointer device at the selected body using a pair of stepper motors.
The unit features a nicely 3D-printed enclosure for the Pi, plus a button and LCD user interface. On bootup, the user is prompted to set the telescope model at a level position and pointing northwards, then scroll through options to select an object to point out.
It’s truly an out-of-this-world build, and illustrates nicely how easy it is to get the needed values, as long are you’re reasonably close to an observatory listed here.