[Startrek (Martin)]

Being of the older gentry and not going down the path of a fully automated unattended observatory, I decided to design and build my own Dome rotation control system for my NexDome
Of course Sidereal Trading encourage you to use the Voyager software to control your NexDome and run your imaging session but I didn’t want to go down that path as it would be discarding my existing programs and learning a new one ( I’m old school )
I also have a second laptop inside the house in my study connected to the Dome laptop via a Cat5e cable running Windows 10 Pro Remote Desktop which is used for monitoring the imaging session
My Dome rotation control system is just a simple electromechanical design made up of timers and relays which is set to track the celestial objects Azimuth movement across the night sky. All I do is select an object for the evenings imaging, jump on Stellarium and record its azimuth movement per hour in degrees as it tracks across the sky either towards the south or north
I have a master time to keep real time 24/7 and can be programmed for up to 6 on / off set times per hour for up to 8hours
Then a time delay relay is used to rotate the dome either clockwise or anticlockwise with durations between 0.5 sec and 10 sec which equates to azimuthal movement in degrees
The timer can be changed mid session to compensate for variations in azimuth
Last night I tested the system on NGC 4945 Tweezers Galaxy and it worked really well , I only had to go out to the Dome and change the timer once through a 4 hour session
The existing NexDome rotation control unit rocker switch can still be used manually to rotate the Dome to the imaging start position, then my automatic Dome control system can take over
Attached are some photos and a control schematic drawing
It’s not perfect but it works good enough to let the Dome rotate on its own for a few hours without intervention