1. Octavian CRISTEA1, Paul DOLEA1, Vlad TURCU2, Radu DANESCU3
Long base-line stereoscopic imager for close to Earth objects range measurements
Octavian CRISTEA1, Paul DOLEA1, Vlad TURCU2, Radu DANESCU3
1: BITNET CCSS, ROU
2: Romanian Academy, Cluj Branch, ROU
3: Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, ROU
2011 IAA Planetary Defense Conference, Bucharest, May 2011

2. might come from the sky …
END of life on Earth
might come from the sky …
ARE YOU AWARE?

3. In a wide area search mission, a telescope collects frames of data on consecutive directions in order to find objects in its range of detection.
The probability to point a telescope having
a field of view FoV = 10 x 10 to an unknown stationary target on the sky is N x (3 x 10-5), where N is the number of scanned directions.
This probability becomes even smaller in the case of a fast moving (close to Earth) object with unknown orbital parameters.
The purpose of this project is to explore the ability of a very wide FoV stereoscopic imager to detect fast moving objects.

4. PROJECT DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES
STEREOSCOPIC IMAGER
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES
Robotic Long Baseline Wide FOV Stereoscopic Imager
for up to LEO/MEO orbits (LEOSCOPE-1). Proof of concept: 2011
Technology Development
2012 (LEOSCOPE-2)
SECURED FINANCING
Robotic Long Baseline
“All Azimuth” Stereoscopic Imager for up to LEO/MEO orbits – 201?
(LEOSCOPE-3)
Robotic Pseudo-Stereoscopic Imager for HEO orbits – 201?
(HEOSCOPE)

5. Robotic Long Baseline Wide FOV Stereoscopic Imager
for up to LEO/MEO orbits (LEOSCOPE-1)
Stereoscope setup. Wide FOV pair cameras take simultaneous consecutive photos of the sky. The stereoscope’s base-line is 37 Km, a compromise between simultaneous detection of low altitude objects from two locations and triangulation accuracy. Pair cameras synchronization is made through GPS.
Geometric calibration of the image is made by matching captured stars in the image with an astronomical catalogue of stars. The recovery of orbital depth is made by correlating matching feature points from pairs of simultaneous images.

6. Piggyback wide FOV camera, component of the stereoscopic imager
The telescopic GOTO equatorial mount is used for camera optical axis alignment and Earth rotation compensation.
GPS synchronization
Marisel (1150 m elevation)
LEOSCOPE-1 pair
camera sites
Feleacu (750 m elevation)

7. The LEOSCOPE-1 camera LENS:
20 mm F/1.8 aspherical, 88.6 mm aperture, 94.5 degrees angle of view
Actual CCD
Array: 4752 x 3168 pixels
Image area: 22.3 mm x 14.9 mm
A/D converter: 14 bits, uncooled
(will be replaced in 2011 by a research grade cooled CCD).
Setup (CCD + lens) specifications:
Angle of view: 66 degrees
Limiting angular resolution: 1 arcmin/pixel
Limiting magnitude (uncooled CCD): approx at 13.1 sky magnitude and 5 s exposure.

8. LEOSCOPE-1: sample (unprocessed) image area at resolution
3456 x 2304, 5 s exposure, without tracking
Fast moving Leonid meteor

9. LEOSCOPE-1: sample (unprocessed) image areas at small resolution
- 5 s exposure, without tracking -
Airplane
Leonid meteor
ISS over Cluj-Napoca
Notice city light pollution
Two LEO satellites

10. Examples of labeling distinct non-stationary objects in the images:
LEOSCOP-1: automatic objects classification is made before depth reconstruction through parallax
Examples of labeling distinct non-stationary objects in the images:
Red = airplane
Blue = condensation / irrelevant
Green = LEO satellite

11. STEREOSCOPIC IMAGER: SHORT TERM PLANS AND AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LEOSCOPE-1 development and range recovery experiments for LEO/MEO objects – partially supported through a grant from the Romanian Research Authority.
Development of a third sensor for High Earth Orbits surveillance (if founding will be available).
Participation to the NATO RTO SET 147 Deep Space Resident Space Object Tracking (HEOSS) experiment, in order to test the stereoscopic imager performances.
Thank you for your attention!