Thoughts on plywood Split Ring/Horseshoe camera mount instead of barn door

I have been exploring the idea of getting into wide-field astrophotography for awhile, and trying to decide what mount rig to go with that won't completely break the bank.

The classic barn door and variants on it are often pointed to as the go-to solution that provides a reasonably inexpensive and simple enough DIY option, but I always had issues with how well the balance/ease of use.

Lately I've gone back to looking at horseshoe mount designs, and considering something that will be large enough for my camera and its lenses, with the option of supporting maybe an 8 to 10" newtonian down the road.

I'll toss together some of my sketches from the last few days into Sketchup for a cleaner view, but thought I would post the idea here and maybe collect a few ideas before I get off work this evening.

I expect it will be controlled by an Arduino unit, or possibly a Raspberry Pi/Beagle Bone and custom interface, and probably with dual axis drives.

Part of the goal is to make something that looks appealing, and will more than likely see use for sidewalk astronomy to show off astro photography.

A horseshoe mount gets very big unless you can get the pivot biased right down by the mirror which pretty much means adding lots of weight.
You might want to look into equatorial platforms. Particularly a Poncet platform. Build one big enough for an 8" or 10" Dob and put your tripod on top of it in the short term.

Steve.