Automatic fine alignment and pointing of movable telescopes using point and template matching

Abstract

A new technique for fine alignment and pointing of small non-fixed telescopes is addressed. The technique is based on pattern matching of a synthesized image to the actual acquired image of the sky. Synthesis of the image is based on getting coordinates of the bright stars in the sky from a database star catalogue. Telescope kinematics are used to convert these coordinates to image coordinates after correcting for major astronomical errors as well as for perspective distortion. Two algorithms have been used for pattern matching: point pattern matching and normalized correlation matching. This process solved the problem of polar alignment of small and movable equatorially mounted telescopes, which was tedious and very time consuming. In addition, it can be used to make precise pointing for any telescope. This method does not necessitate either having precise encoders or precise timing. © 2005 IEEE.