Raspberry Pi Telescope

I set out to build a way to view what I was seeing through the viewfinder of a telescope and have that be displayed on a monitor for easier viewing in a group setting. This was my attempt at doing so.

The first steps were to gather the parts needed to make a Raspberry PI telescope. This included a Celestron Tabletop 76 Model #31034, a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, a Raspberry pi High Quality camera with the lens removed, Hardware to mount the Pi to the telescope, and a bungee to hold it on. You will also need a Monitor that has an HDMI input with and HDMI cable for viewing the image

The first thing is to assemble the camera to the lens. You will need to remove the Raspberry Pi Lens form the module as the telescope lens will act as the focusing mechanism. I then attached the camera to a adapter that could then thread onto the telescope lens. The issue for me was trying to get the correct adapter so that I could firmly attach the camera to the telescope and so that the correct focal length could be achieved. I secured the raspberry Pi to the mounting hardware with screws and then used the bungee to secure it to the telescope. I the connected all connections to power and the monitor.

Once You have your Pi up and running you will need to run a media player. I used Mplayer. You will need to enable the camera so that the Mplayer will be able to recognize the camera. next is just point and shoot. so far I have not been able to find the correct lens combination to get the focal point on the telescope to be able to focus on a far distant point. The best that this can do is focus on an object that is 10-20 feet away. I would need to acquire more lenses of varying strengths and the adapters to go with them to increase its range You can see in the pictures that if I remove the camera and leave the lens attached I can see objects at a distance but they are not magnified.