Design of Mobile and Robotic Telescope Mount with Dual Equatorial & Alt-Azimuth System Hanif Nanda Syahputra (a*), Dhani Herdiwijaya (b)
a) Master Program in Civil Engineering, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia
*hanifnanda.s[at]gmail.com
b) Department of Astronomy, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia
Abstract
Light pollution is getting worse in many places. It has reduced the location of the dark sky and changed the way for observing the clear night sky. Traditional telescopes have been a heavier system and very difficult for beginners to use and find the celestial object they want to see. Moreover, people must observe the new moon in the near horizon to determine the time of worship for Muslims. They need a portable and good balance telescope mounting. The telescope design with a mechanical structure and mounting based on the operation of the equatorial system or the Alt-Az was developed. We focused on mounting without the need for counter weight and added a computer system to make it easier to move and connect to other devices. The challenge in realizing this tool is that the change in position on the mounting axis causes the magnitude of the torque to vary greatly. The mounting should balance the change of direction of the gravitational load to the orientation of the mounting structure. In this research, the finite element method (FEM) was used to predict the number of deformation variations that occur on the mounting. So, it can provide a rational basis for knowing the performance of the mounting structure when pointing and tracking. After challenging the above problems, we constructed and tested the prototype of the mounting. The performance of the mounting revealed good results.
Keywords: telescope mounting- finite element method- design
