Full project build tutorial on Hackster here . Github code here .

The idea behind this project was to use my PyPortal to make an ambient, eye-catching desktop ornament that showcases astronomical images. Its something that can sit on my desk and be fun to glance at throughout the day.

By scrolling across these large images at a slow pace, its gives a sense of how much of the cosmos these images are capturing. It can take days to scroll across a single image.

There is a preprocessing Python script which runs on the user's computer to download one of five mosaics, and parse them into a long strip that can be scrolled across. This formatted image strip is stored on an SD card and slotted into the PyPortal.

The PyPortal runs an Arduino script, which reads the image contents and scrolls it across the screen.…