Messierhunter
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I'm currently developing a new program for automatic object tracking with GOTO telescopes. It's designed to track fast moving objects, such as satellites and rockets, but unlike existing software it's not exclusive to telescopes which offer the ability to directly control the drive rates. I used a different approach to providing variable speed tracking and I was able to implement both manual and automatic control on an LX200 Classic.
Manual control allows the user to move the telescope with a joystick and throttle; increasing the throttle and/or joystick deflection will increase the speed of the slew. Automatic control allows the telescope to automatically track and follow an object using a guide camera or electronic viewfinder mounted on the telescope. The target can be designed either by clicking on it within the video window using your mouse, or by centering the object manually and pressing the trigger of the joystick.
You can also designate the size of the region of interest which the program will center on the last known position of the object and use to search for the object in each consecutive image; this allows the program to ignore potentially distracting objects that have the same color or intensity elsewhere in the image.
I'm still adding features to the program specific to satellite tracking. The final version of the program will include a feature to automatically log the detected coordinates of a satellite as your telescope tracks it in realtime, using the standard IOD format so that you can easily and quickly load the observation log into one of several free programs to calculate the approximate orbit and cross reference against known orbits (see here: http://sat.belastro.net/satelliteorbitdetermination.com/ ).
Here's a demonstration of the program being used to track my motion with a flashlight indoors.
But to really prove this works in the field, here's a video of Tuesday night's Atlas V launch filmed using the same telescope setup seen above.
Early next week I hope to start tracking ISS with the program if the weather allows. After the satellite-related features are in place I will start porting it to other telescope types. It has to communicate directly with the telescope via the serial connection, ASCOM will not work for this, so it has to speak each telescope's language natively. Fortunately the communications protocols for both the Autostar and Nexstar systems seem to be pretty similar to the original LX200.
Manual control allows the user to move the telescope with a joystick and throttle; increasing the throttle and/or joystick deflection will increase the speed of the slew. Automatic control allows the telescope to automatically track and follow an object using a guide camera or electronic viewfinder mounted on the telescope. The target can be designed either by clicking on it within the video window using your mouse, or by centering the object manually and pressing the trigger of the joystick.
You can also designate the size of the region of interest which the program will center on the last known position of the object and use to search for the object in each consecutive image; this allows the program to ignore potentially distracting objects that have the same color or intensity elsewhere in the image.
I'm still adding features to the program specific to satellite tracking. The final version of the program will include a feature to automatically log the detected coordinates of a satellite as your telescope tracks it in realtime, using the standard IOD format so that you can easily and quickly load the observation log into one of several free programs to calculate the approximate orbit and cross reference against known orbits (see here: http://sat.belastro.net/satelliteorbitdetermination.com/ ).
Here's a demonstration of the program being used to track my motion with a flashlight indoors.
But to really prove this works in the field, here's a video of Tuesday night's Atlas V launch filmed using the same telescope setup seen above.
Early next week I hope to start tracking ISS with the program if the weather allows. After the satellite-related features are in place I will start porting it to other telescope types. It has to communicate directly with the telescope via the serial connection, ASCOM will not work for this, so it has to speak each telescope's language natively. Fortunately the communications protocols for both the Autostar and Nexstar systems seem to be pretty similar to the original LX200.
