- My automated sun tracking work -

This page describes how I achieved automated sun tracking for my Coronado PST.

I connected my laptop to the Autostar#497's serial port ( some soldering and
filing was required as I modified a telephone cable ), got the command manual
from Meade's website, and wrote the software for controlling the motorized mount.
As a next step, I hooked up an EyeToy (web)camera to the same laptop and wrote the
image acqusition code. Next step was to write a basic object recognition code. The
prototype below just identifies green blobs and computes the center of mass for the
biggest one. The routine for the actual sun tracking was a lot easier; I removed the
filter from a solar eclipse glass I ordered from Edmund Scientific and put it in front
of the webcam. It just bacame a simple circle tracking...
The laptop I use has a 500MHz PIII, so there are some RT limitations...

Green blob identified, slew started...





Green blob in center of view...





...here is a little movie (11 MB) to demonstrate how it works...





This is how the real sun looks with the eclipse filter...

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Go to the Photos... or to the PST Technical page...