Star Identification and Alignment System
OwnerMark S. Whortoninventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Autonomous operation of ground telescope and CCD imaging systems is a highly desirable mode of conducting amateur and professional astronomy. Many current systems allow remote operation to some degree, but no commercial system permits complete autonomous operations suitable for precise pointing and imaging. In particular, the initial alignment of the telescope to the celestial coordinates is a manual operation for all but the highest end commercial systems. Even for the systems that permit a crude automatic initial alignment, operational alignments require manual intervention.
Claims20
A method for identifying celestial objects comprising the steps of:
- I. providing a telescope;
- II. determining initial configuration data of the telescope;
- II. slewing the telescope to a predetermined drive axis orientation;
- III. providing an image capture device;
- IV. capturing an image for star identification;
- V. providing a star field database;
- VI performing star identification process, utilizing the star field database;
- VII. deriving relative coordinates from an identified star;
- VIII. providing a telescope-pointing system;
- VIII. providing to the telescope-pointing system the derived relative coordinates;
- and
- IX. aligning the telescope utilizing the telescope-pointing system.
An autonomous system for pointing a telescope comprising:
- an image capture device;
- a processing and identification protocol;
- a star field database;
- a pointing processor;
- a pointing control system;
- a user interface;
- and
- a telescope;
- wherein the image capture device is configured to capture an image of at least two celestial objects;
- is configured to convey that image to the processing and identification protocol;
- the image is processed and associated with a unique set of data in the star field database and the pointing processor is then configured to process:
- the unique set of data;
- a signal from the pointing control system, said signal providing the pointing direction of the image capture device;
- and
- input from the user interface to the pointing system;
- and
- the output of the pointing processor is sufficient to point the telescope toward a predetermined celestial object.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.