Comment by onion2k
2 days ago
It's trivial to draw a line between some fixed points and extrapolate back to an origin if there's no external forces acting on the asteroid. But there is - planetary gravity, the moon, potentially the sun heating one side of it, atmospheric wind, weather, etc make a big difference. That makes it harder.
That's basics of meteor observation. As long as camera didn't move, you can plot the track against the stars and time is known. Then with two tracks from different locations, orbit is determined.
Also, a typical consumer camera is going to struggle (even with the best analysis!) to have visual accuracy within even a few degrees of true (due to everything from high compression ratios in post processing to shitty optical properties in the actual camera) and that makes a probability cone that is pretty large.
Still better than nothing, though!
building a WCS model (pixel XY <-> ray vectors) of a camera is a solved science. Of course you can never expect it to be rectangular.
No kidding, that is what I was referring too. Precision for a typical doorbell camera is going to be several minutes of angle at best, which is my point.
1 reply →