12 Volt Power Supply



A portable astrophotography setup must have a portable power source. After seeing that the largest power supply Kendrick sells for astronomical use has a 33 Amp Hour battery and costs nearly $400, I decided to construct my own. This is a 75 amp hour setup which cost under $200 to build including the charger.

These are the various parts I used:

12 Volt 75 Amp Hour Battery (Battery Store)
Plastic Battery Box (Battery Store)
Four Cigarette Ligher Sockets (Camper's World)
Blue and Red Wire
Voltge Meter (Camper's World)
Electrical connection block (Fry's Electronics)
BatteryMINDer charger (Camper's World)
Various Electrcal Crimp Terminals (Auto Parts Store)

The voltage meter was designed to be plugged into a cigarette lighter, so I removed the plug and hard wired it into the circuit and attached it to the box with velcro. The switch on the top turns the volt meter on and off. So far I have been able to run a Losmandy Titan Mount, Laptop Computer, and an ST8-XE camera for an entire evening's photography off of this battery with no problems.


12 volt 75 Amp Hour Field Battery. The wire on the side is where the charger plugs in.



Field Battery insides.