Telescope Handbox Design Based on Serial Communication with RS485 using Arduino Uno Microcontroller Board
Rihhadatul Aisy, Amandaru Taruna Mandala, Maman Sulaeman, Mochamad Irfan

Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bosscha Observatory

Abstract

Handbox of a telescope is a device that is used by an observer to control the movement of a telescope. Buttons that will always be found in a handbox consist of four directions, which are east, west, south, and north, with different speed configurations, which consist of guide, set, and slew, from the slowest to the fastest.
However, not every telescope had already been built with a handbox, therefore, to overcome the obstacle to control a telescope from remote distance, we have made a handbox of a telescope which is based on serial communication using RS485 with Arduino Uno microcontroller board. When one out of four directions button is being pressed in a certain speed configuration mode, different 8 bit signal for each button will be generated, in which the signal itself will be sent to the microcontroller board that will be put on the mounting along with the RS485 serial communication device and move the telescope in according to the command of the user.

Keywords: telescope, microcontroller, RS485, serial communication, handbox, Arduino Uno

Topic: Instrumentation in Astronomy