On telescope camera for plane spotting

[Matt Wilkinson]

Who uses an optical camera system to detect aircraft around the laser pointing direction? We are interested in perhaps trialling such a system at Herstmonceux.  Are the aircraft always identifiable in the images? What method do you use for detection? Can it work at night?

Cheers

Matt

[kalvis]

We are using Mintron CCTV attached to telescope,  approx 2x4 deg FOV, plane navigation lights are visible in night.   

[Matt Wilkinson]

Hi Kalvis

That's quite a narrow FOV.  We are wondering here @Hx what would be the best approach, either to use a wider image to spot approaching planes and take action when necessary or to have a narrower field to immediately shutoff when any plane like object appears in the frame (perhaps using a comparison to an earlier frame).

We've not tested our camera at night yet.

Matt

[kalvis]

In our experience FOV is  sufficient  to have  a time to manually use safety switch to block outgoing laser beam. From the other hand - plane entering FOV of camera is a quite rare event for our system and location.

[Matt Wilkinson]

Recovered post:

Good morning.
We are currently defining our Telescope system (our plan is to buy it this year). It is really interesting your work related with the optical camera for aircraft security. So we will have it into consideration for our system (in addition with ads-b, flarm, all-sky camera, directional microphone...).
Best regards.
serna_yebes