I really love hobbies or projects that tie together many of my interests. One project that does this is the field of panoramic photography. It touches on astronomy, photography, mapping, math, orbital mechanics, image manipulation, spycraft, open source, and good old-fashioned duct-tape engineering. Maybe even a bit of fame, too!
One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is create a computerized method of tracking things that move through the sky. While there are plenty of sources for air traffic control data which would work, I’m interested in things not being tracked by air traffic control. Things like meteors and satellites, for instance. I’d like to have a way to alert me when such things are passing through. Wouldn’t that be cool?
The way to accomplish this is through what is called an “allsky” camera. This is essentially a camera that can see the whole sky at once. How can a camera see the whole sky at once? Easy: it uses a panoramic mirror. The camera captures the image from the mirror and software unwraps it into a panoramic view of the sky.
Adding more than one of these allsky cameras gives even greater possibilities. With multiple cameras the position of moving objects can be triangulated. A rough estimate of the objects altitude could also be theoretically calculated.
Its said that astronomy is one science where the layman can still make significant impact, particularly because there’s so much sky to watch and so few watching it. With a “heads-up” system like this I could use computers to help keep an eye on it all. Who knows? Maybe I could get a comet named after me or something.
Such panoramic cameras are useful not only for astronomy but can be used for more practical things. For instance, a panoramic photo could be taken in a home for sale and provide web viewers a “virtual tour” of the room. Also, the Stellarium astronomy app I’ve been touting can also input a panoramic image to make the viewing location appear more real. Or a panoramic view could be added to the Flightgear flight simulator to make an airport seem more realistic. Or if you’ve got terabytes to spare you could create your own Google Street View. I can think of lots of possibilities!
Check out these allsky cameras at Cloudbait, Starlight Cafe, one at the Alomar Arctic Observatory, and an allsky cam in Australia. Also check out this article covering the panoramic software available for Linux, such as the Panorama Tools project at Sourceforce.
Also check out this affordable panorama camera kit. Just $60! Its designed for terrestrial panoramas but could be easily adapted for sky shots. At that price I can afford to experiment.
I’ve got lots to learn about this field but it looks like a fun one to explore.