Mobile Phone Astrometry Explorer

Finds stars in a mobile phone night sky image using median-subtraction and peak-finding and compares to results from astrometry.net.

Mobile phones use image registration and stacking to generate effective exposure times of several seconds, enabling remarkable night sky photos. This Live Script illustrates how to find hundreds (even thousands) of stars in a mobile phone image using median filtering and 2d peak-finding [1], examines star colors, identifies candidate visual binaries, shows how stars in mobile phone images may be identified using an astrometry service [2], and compares the results of MATLAB image processing and star finding to those from a professional service.

Students armed with mobile device cameras and this script can learn "hands-on" a bit about image processing as well as how to access a public astrometry service and an astronomical look-up service. Additionally, they will learn how to crack open a FITS file with MATLAB. Hopefully, they may appreciate better the technologies behind mobile phone cameras, sky-watching apps, and research telescopes.

'Try this' suggestions and 'Challenges' are included for further exploration.

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