Brazilian amateur astronomers face restrictions on the acquisition of equipment due to high costs and high custom taxes, which leads many of them to hand craft their own equipment attracted by lower costs, though some amateur astronomers also do so motivated by enthusiasm. Under the circumstances, a computerized German equatorial mount whose production involves popular manufacturing processes, materials and components that are easily found on the market was designed, simplifying execution and favouring enthusiasts interested in replicating the project. The designed mount has load capacity for up to 16 kg telescopes and can be operated in latitudes ranging from 0° to 80°, covering the entire national territory. It can be built for manual or motorized operation, and it is able to point automatically (GoTo function) when connected to a computer, even when the target is on the opposite side of the meridian. The equatorial mount’s firmware, written in C/C++, is embedded in an Arduino Mega R3 that controls the equipment. The system was built and submitted to qualitative tests with a Newtonian telescope to ascertain its general usability, the performance of the GoTo function, and the performance of the tracking speeds for stars, planets and the Moon.
