The Method of Measurements of Celestial Coordinates in Wide-Field TV-Frames

Abstract

We present a method for calculations of equatorial coordinates of any point in the single frame of the wide-field TV systems. This method can be applying for the different television systems [wide-field cameras, all-sky cameras, the cameras with the hybrid TV-system (the system with coupled of the Image Intensifier) et al.]. In that system the calculations of distortions are difficult. Therefore, we devised this method which helps decrease errors (due to distortion and the electro-optical system).The method can be used for measuring of equatorial coordinates of meteor tracks under difficult conditions during the observations such as partial cloudiness, small number of stars and large distortions of the coordinate grid in the frame. These restrictions cannot be overcome by other methods. In the case of the small number of stars the present method using of the reference stars received on a series of frames during the observation period. The accuracy of the method has been estimated to be 4′–8′ (for cameras with fov 50° × 40° at the CCD 720 × 576 pixels) for maximum number of reference points in the frame. The method used 3 reference points for calculation of the equatorial coordinates of the object. One can use this method if the camera was re-oriented as well. We use this method for our wide field of view cameras.