Project Starscope
Abstract—Astrophotography is the art of capturing images of the night sky, either for professional or recreational purposes. While many people pursue astrophotography at the amateur level, astrophotography is quite an expensive hobby, with “beginner” setups costing thousands of dollars. In addition to the monetary cost, astrophotography requires significant expertise in astronomy to produce adequate results, which presents a sharp learning curve to beginners. What is needed is a cheap, remotely accessible system which can image astronomical objects with a minimum of user inputs, so that those without extensive astronomical experience or deep pockets can easily capture high-quality images of the night sky. That is exactly the need that our project, Stargazer, seeks to fulfill. The goa of our project is to build an astrophotography system controllable via a user-friendly application in which the user inputs a specific astronomical object for viewing. That information is then transmitted to our system, which then calibrates the position of the tracking mount, points the camera at the inputted object, and tracks the object across the night sky for a period of several exposures (using camera settings as inputted by the user). These images are then transmitted to the user’s device where they are stacked and averaged into a final processed image