Mariusz E. Grøtte, Georgia Institute of Technology, Shahezad M. Virani, Georgia Institute of Technology, Marcus J. Holzinger, Georgia Institute of Technology, Andy Register, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Claudio A. Perez, Universidad de Chile, Juan E. Tapia, Universidad Andres Bello
Keywords: All-Sky Camera, Synoptic Survey Telescopes, SR Reconstruction, Image Fusion, Space Situational Awareness
Abstract:
Near-Earth object (NEO) detection, transient astronomical event detection, and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) support are all provided by wide-field, high cadence synoptic telescope surveys. Many such exquisite and monolithic synoptic surveys achieve impressive performance and are certainly changing these application areas. In the past 15 years Raven-class telescopes have made a clear case for the utility of commercial-off-the-shelf systems in SSA. This paper documents the initial efforts and next steps for the Omnidirectional Space Situational Awareness (OmniSSA) array, a wide-field-of-view synoptic survey system that leverages the Raven-class telescope paradigm. The approach utilizes multiple overlapping wide field-of-view sensors with post-processing super resolution and image stacking techniques to generate synthetic images equivalent to larger wide field-of-view systems. The synthetic array offers potential to utilize a plurality of components that are individually low cost and commercial off-the-shelf. A brief survey of synoptic survey systems is presented, followed by a description of the current hardware implementation of the OmniSSA array and preliminary out-of-the-box results for baseline OmniSSA camera SR and image stacking routines.
Date of Conference: September 20-23, 2016
Track: Adaptive Optics & Imaging