lavadip / Projects

26 June 2021

Accuracy of SkEye Cam

Update 1, 5th July 2021: A few days after publishing this post, I changed the solver to assume a square pixel grid. This helps converge the solution faster though it changes the results slightly. This post has been updated with the newer results.
Update 2, 14th July 2021: Better accuracy after correcting for lens distortions.

I have created a new app called SkEye Cam. It's a Camera App targeted at hobbyist astronomers (such as myself), and its highlight feature at launch will be real-time plate-solving.

Plate-solving is the act of figuring out which part of the sky has been captured on a camera plate (image). This can not only help identify objects in the image, it can also help find the orientation of a telescope, which in turn can be used for navigation, etc.

Compared to raw IMU sensors, plate-solving has the promise of being more accurate and reliable. But exactly how accurate can it be?

We decided to find out.

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24 Oct 2010

DSC test for Android

As I began to add support for Digital Setting Circles (DSC) into my SkEye app, I thought the first step is to get the communication right. That is, the communication between the DSC and the phone, over bluetooth.

I built a separate app for doing this and figured, hey, this could be useful to others as well. Perhaps, to test your setup or simply to learn how your DSC communicates.

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28 Dec 2010

Introducing SkEye

SkEye QR Code

SkEye is a Planetarium for Android. It is similar to Google Sky Map, but designed to work with telescopes. It lets you use your phone as a PUSHTO guide without needing any other equipment.

There is now a dedicated website for SkEye.

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by HRJ
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