Gopro Starlapse Rig

thingiverse

I wanted to design a rig to track celestial bodies through the sky for a timelapse with my gopro. Unfortunately, most designs cost upwards of $150 to make yourself. So I set about thinking of a way to track stars with a simple, cheap motor, and came down on a 24 hour "military time" analog clock movement. This is the driver for an analog clock the hour hand of which makes one rotation every 24 hours instead of every 12. This means that it moves at almost exactly the same speed as the earth but in the opposite direction, so if you align it properly it will make it look like the stars (or sun, or moon) are standing still while the earth moves underneath them...which is, of course, the case. I know this is a rather shabby design that's only really suitable for my specific camera. I'm posting this more to get the concept out there than anything else. If someone wants to do a redesign to work with a standard 1/4-20 tripod mount or something similar, drop me a comment and I'll definitely link to it. If you want to transport the rig without risking torque to the turntable, you can print the cover. Here are a couple of videos taken using the rig, at various points in development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At0Osyb3Pwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHkG5_pzlEU