DarkSky
Darksky is a satellite tracking and radio telescope project
LNB
By re-using a Ku band LNB and a parabolic satellite dish along with some basic micro-controllers, tracking objects in the sky should be relatively easy.
The LNB is powered by a LNBP9-LIT voltage regulator which outputs 13VDC or 18VDC with an optional 22KHz carrier signal
3D Printed parts
Basically the only parts you can't buy at a hardware store or amazon...
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/gs3KI5FEyEn-darksky-bearing-hub-and-motor-mounts https://www.tinkercad.com/things/a3AqQsurTH3-dark-sky-upper-assembly https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6xYix4EpEH2-darksky-dish-hub
Drive Motors
The drive motors are +/- 12 VDC 9 RPM worm gear drivers with 3.3VDC quadrature encoders with 11000 pulses per revolution. These were chosen because of the high torque rating and stepper motors can slip and require constant power to hold the rotor stationary.
Arduino DUE
The Arduino controls the drive motors and receives interrupts from the encoders. It also controls the voltage and carrier frequency of the LNB9P-LIT.
Raspberry PI
The Arduino communicates to a Raspberry PI 4 over a USB serial interface. The Raspberry PI will also have a GPS receiver so computation of right ascension and declination is possible. The Raspberry PI will also run a web server that will serve data from the LNB to the web application client.
HackRF One/SDR and IPC
The LNB is powered by the LNBP9-LIT though a RF power injector. The output of the rf power injector is fed into a HackRF one which is a software defined radio. This uses the gnuradio software package which will be running on the raspberry pi. The transport between gnuradio and the web client will be ZeroMQ.