Many astronomical observations require extended image exposures in order to improve signal to noise ratio and to provide adequate data for quantitative analysis of image contents. Maintaining accurate pointing of a telescope over the desired observation time is challenging. We consider the problem of correcting for changes in the field of view by dividing the overall observation into a series of image frames, analyzing the individual frames to estimate the changes in the field of view between frames, and performing a corrected accumulation of image frames to form the final observation. We present an automated image tracking algorithm tailored for execution on resource-constrained platforms. We show the results of extensive algorithm performance characterization studies. Finally we describe an implementation of the algorithm for a radiation-tolerant FPGA.
High-Performance Automated Image Tracking for Astronomical Observations
2021-03-06
2299396 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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