Arduino + TFT = Micro Star Chart
Shabaz came up with a clever use for round LCDs beyond the usual clock display by creating a star map. His project uses an Arduino, a round TFT display, a GPS receiver, and external flash memory to store star data. While you can skip the GPS receiver or the flash memory, doing so would reduce the feature set.
He tackled the project in four parts: reading GPS data, driving the LCD, storing star data, and calculating star positions. For the computational heavy lifting, he ported public domain code from the book Astronomical Algorithms, which leverages the Yale Bright Star Catalog for star data.
Though Shabaz used a round display, the post suggests a larger rectangular screen might improve usability. Additionally, integrating the entire system into a watch could take this project to another level. If you want to experiment with the code yourself, you can run the core on Linux, producing a PNG output of the night sky—useful for debugging without the hardware.
Read more: Arduino + TFT = Micro Star Chart
