Telescope pointing based on inertial measurement unit

Abstract

© 2017 The Author(s). In this paper we study the problem of how to determine the coordinates of a point a telescope is directed to on the basis of data obtained from a 9DOF sensor board. On the 9DOF sensor board there are three sensors: the gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer. By combining the data from all the three sensors one obtains the Eulerian angles in the system tied to the sensor board. The Eulerian angles are transformed into the horizontal and equatorial coordinates in order to obtain the point the telescope is directed to.