In the spring of 2023, I received a phone call from Peter Blackberg (an old friend, RIT alumnus, and a space enthusiast) when he asked if I would join a call with NASA astronaut Don Pettit. Don wanted to build a star tracker for his next space flight.   Star trackers— siderial camera mounts — are commonly used for astrophotography to capture the night sky in sharp detail. By rotating at the exact speed the Earth rotates, siderial mounts act to cancel out the motion of the Earth so a camera can ...