Equatorial telescope mount drive.

thingiverse

These are simple stepper motor brackets for equatorial telescope mounts. My telescope mount is unbranded and inexpensive. I do not know if the brackets will fit other types. The brackets are for Nema 17 type stepper motors. The equatorial drive should be a 0.9deg per step motor if you intend to use it for astrophotography. Keep your expectations and magnification low as direct driven mounts have limitations. If you use the bracket for the declination axis you will have to use screws that are 3-4 mm longer than original. If you use a dual shaft motor on the declination axis you can put a knob at the back of it for manual adjustment if you are out of batteries. The motors will of course require some sort of controller. I plan to use an arduino with A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Modules at 1/8 steps. It is generally not recommended to mount your telescope without counterweights. The controls on the box are a four axis (well, three and a button) joystick for two axis and focus, the button is to enable, There is also a rotary encoder for fine tuning the equatorial and focus drive and an on-off-on spring return toggle switch to choose which. All from ebay. The focus drive is mounted on a metal angle not shown. I hope to add the arduino sketch when it is ready. Instructions I used ABS in 0.3mm layers. All screws in the controllerbox are 12mm M3 nylon. It takes three A4988 stepper motor drive modules and an arduino nano. I use drilled out M3 nylon nuts as spacers for the modules. The holes in the cable tentioner must be threaded with a tap.