Barn Door Camera Mount

This view of the eta carinae nebula was shot in costa rica with a camera riding on the tracker described here.

Barn door camera mount.

High end astronomical telescopes usually have what s called a clock drive which slowly rotates the telescope allowing for those long exposure. The mount described here provides one of the easiest ways to track the night sky with your camera. For beginning astrophotographers seeking a more economical approach a barn door mount is a simple way to track a camera for wide angle pictures. The camera mount approx 300mm of 22mm x 44mm meranti a hard wood well harder than pine anyway a brass 1 4 20 modified machine screw for mounting the camera.

Some of the modern cameras can pose a bit of a problem though as a result of their electronic shutters. If you have a dslr camera and are interested in astronomy you ve probably considered dipping a toe into the astrophotography waters. A barn door tracker is a camera attachment camera mount used to capture long exposures of night sky images. M6 rod 90mm with wingnuts and washers for the tilt axis in the camera mount.

It is a simple but effective way of eliminating the star trail effect of night sky photography without expensive equipment. A barn door tracker also known as a haig or scotch mount is a device used to cancel out the diurnal motion of the earth for the observation or photography of astronomical objects it is a simple alternative to attaching a camera to a motorized equatorial mount. You can buy fancy motorized equatorial mounts for telescopes and cameras but it s way cheaper and more satisfying to build your own simple barn door tracking mount using a long bolt or threaded rod as a drive screw. But a camera is only part of the equation continue reading build a hinge tracker for astrophotography.

You mount your camera on the door then aim the hinge straight at the north star polaris. M8 nut and bolt for mounting the cam mount to the main body. There are several designs out there the one i made is called a curved sector drive because the threaded rod it uses is curved. Any 35mm camera that allows for holding the shutter open via a bulb or time setting can be used.

It seems that these cameras consume battery power in order to hold the shutter open. This image of the scorpius milky way was captured from costa rica with a dslr camera and the simple hinge tracker mount described here. Known generically as a barn door tracking platform it s easy to make and works well for camera and lens astrophotography. The barn door mount i built took only a few hours of effort and cost only a few dollars over the tripod and camera ball mount i already had.