EclipsePhoto
Concept
Autonomous capture of a complete solar eclipse, from first contact (C1) through totality to fourth contact (C4), without the photographer needing to look at the rig. A single controller drives the camera and an equatorial mount in lockstep, ramps exposure across the ~600 million-to-one dynamic range that an eclipse traverses, keeps the sun centred as a crescent through partial phases, and recovers cleanly when something unplugs or browns out.
The photographer’s job during totality is to watch the sky. The controller’s job is to make sure that decision doesn’t cost the shots.
Architecture
~600M:1 dynamic range"] HIST["Frame Histogram
per-capture analysis"] EXP["Holy-Grail Exposure Controller
PI loop over light + histogram"] CV["Crescent Tracker
OpenCV Hough · centroiding"] MOUNT["Equatorial Mount
INDI drive"] CAM["Camera
gphoto2 control"] SEQ["C1 → C2 → Totality → C3 → C4 Sequence"] UI["Mission Control
telemetry · health · alerts"] SENSE --> EXP HIST --> EXP EXP --> CAM CV --> MOUNT MOUNT --> SEQ CAM --> SEQ SEQ --> UI
The light sensor and the frame histogram are deliberately redundant: the sensor responds faster but the histogram is what’s actually going on the card, so the controller leans on the sensor for prediction and the histogram for correction.