In the coming summer break, besides enhancing my academic abilities, I also have dozens of epic plans for spending my free time. On the top of the list, I set myself an ambitious project of upgrading my space telescope and taking some high-resolution pictures of the planets in our solar system, like a mini observatory. I bought my telescope a year ago for a reasonable price. However, despite the telescope having a magnificent large-diameter scope like a cannon, the guidance system (called equatorial) is outdated. Since the are no motors powering the equatorial, I have to adjust the direction of the scope by twisting two steel knobs on the equator manually as the celestial bodies move across the night sky. After an hour of turning the knobs continuously, I usually end up with are sore back and arms. What’s more, the pictures I take sing my current system are all blurry and unusable. In this summer, however, I decided to put an end to this torturous experience.
The first step is adding a tracking system to the equatorial. I checked the price of equatorials with tracking motors on Taobao and the price was staggeringly high. Even a second-hand motor and a simple circuit board made by someone else would cost hundreds. That’s 3 times more than its production cost! I knew that if I use all the pocket money I saved on the equatorial, I would miss Steam’s summer sale. Thus, I decided to build my own tracking system. I found a design of the control system online called On-Step which is widely applied by amateurs like me. Through years of development by the community, this system is already very mature. I download the blueprints and the software, which are for free, on GitHub. As soon as summer break begins, I will send the blueprints of the circuit board to the factories through Taobao and order some motors that can fit on my equatorial. In this way, the cost of the modification can be reduced significantly and I can buy another game that I have wanted for ages. To me, this is the key to the ultimate summer vacation.
The moon
However, modification on my telescope is just part of my plan. I also want to capture the staggering beauty of different celestial bodies. The problem is, Shanghai is a big city with a dense population. At night, the light pollution is so strong that only the brightest celestial bodies can be seen in the night sky of Shanghai. Nevertheless, there is a place not far from the city which also has little light pollution, Lingang. An artificial lake sits in the center of Lingang and there is hardly any bright light source in the area since its still underdeveloped. I have already planned the route. It will take me only one hour to travel there by metro. However, the whole telescope is way too heavy for one person to carry. Therefore, I will call my friend, Allen, to help me carry some weight. After we reach the place, we will need a place to rest and wait for the night to come. Luckily, Allen is an expert in hotels and he will manage to book a room with the lowest price. During the night, we will take photos of the moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and even nebulas. We will work through the night until we are too tired to lift a finger. At this point, my plan of exploring the universe with my telescope during summer vacation will be officially accomplished.
