The dome controller consists of the following functional components:

• Dome power supply and motors - purchased with the dome from Technical Innovations.
• Shutter auto-shutoff circuit - this stops the shutter motor when the shutter either reaches the fully open or fully closed positions. It is a custom designed solid state (using MOSFETs) circuit that connects to two magnetic switches. It does not require any additional wires be connected to the rotating dome other than the standard bi-polar motor contacts.
• Dome motor control box - a microprocessor controlled system that controls the dome motors, either by manual controls or via an RS232 serial port. It also has an contact closure input used to immediately close the dome (presently connected to my Boltwood Cloud Sensor) independent of the controlling PC.
• Dome azimuth sensing system - uses 72 UPC barcodes placed around the dome at ~5 degree intervals read by a bar code scanner.
• ARO Dome Controller software - a PC based control program allowing user control of dome functions or control by other programs using the ASCOM dome standard.
• Telescope-Dome slaving software - I am presently using the ASCOM Dome Control Panel written by Doug George.

More details about this system, with pictures, will eventually be put on-line.

Last Updated: February 3, 2007. Click here to go back to the ARO home page.