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Really interesting. They're using a Hough transform, which is used to pick out shapes from an image (lines and circles most often), especially popular before ML
by kadoban 4y ago
Really interesting. They're using a Hough transform, which is used to pick out shapes from an image (lines and circles most often), especially popular before ML techniques for object recognition existed.
Sounds like a great way to search for asteroids, never would have thought of it.
It's essentially just a coordinate transform that lets you add up evidence for a particular object, and the objects stand out as little bright points.
I'm sure they're doing lots of clever things on top of it of course though.
- dylan604 4y agoLots(most?) comet discovery is now done off of sequences of images and looking for the dots that move in relation to the background stars once the stars are aligned. At that point, you could do differences with subtraction between the plates so that aligned stars disappear and only interesting dots remain. No machine learning required.
- salty_biscuits 4y agoHough was looking for the tracks from charged particles in cloud chambers, so the algorithm comes home after a while I guess.
- kadoban 4y agoI did not know that, that's a nice origin story!