If you are interested in astrophotography and you want to make a low cost DIY setup here is a great project. Greg Holloway developed a Raspberry Pi Zero based wireless camera for a 1.25" telescope eyepiece receptacle with 3d printed casing. It is battery powered so you can take it in the wilderness to observe the stars.
Full project description, all the files and software can be found at:
Görkem Bozkurt developed an Arduino powered astronomy pointer and tracker that can be made on a DIY 3d printer. It could probably be customized to move a small telescope or asrophotography setup.
He described his project as:
Star track is an Arduino based, GoTo-mount inspired star tracking system. It can point and track any object in the sky(Celestial coordinates are given as input) with 2 Arduinos, a gyro,RTC module,two low-cost stepper motors and a 3D printed structure.
Do keep in mind that lasers are dangerous and that there are strict laws against pointing at airplanes.
Here are a few DIY projects for all you astronomy enthusiast out there which can be done with acces to 3d printer.
Ultrascope smartphone telescope
Ultrascope is a 3d printed telescope which uses Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone with high resolution camera to get pictures and light curves from space objects. Project is developed by James Parr from Open Space Agency.
All the information about function and construction of the Ultrascope are available at:
PiKon, the 3d printed telescope attachment for Raspberry Pi camera
PiKon is a low cost project where a 3d printed mount is used to attach Raspberry Pi camera to Newtonian reflector telescope to get 5MP resolution astrophotogaphs. Project was developed by University of Sheffield in cooperation with Alternative Photonics.
Printonian, the 3D printed DIY Dobsonian telescope
From Printonian project description:
This thing is a 3D printed Dobsonian telescope designed for an 8" primary mirror with a focal length of 48". The optical tube assembly consists of aluminum extrusions attached with 3D printed ribs designed for standard hardware and covered with cardboard tubing. The optical tube was mounted onto a base that was made from 3/4" baltic birch plywood cut on a CNC router. The bottom base plates are separated with plastic bearings to allow for control.
All the files, parts list and instructions can be found at:
