The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 14, 2009
Filed:
Jun. 10, 2005
Rick Mcwilliams, Ventura, CA (US);
Rick McWilliams, Ventura, CA (US);
Bushnell Inc., Overland Park, KS (US);
Abstract
An automatic telescope () capable of determining an orientation without requiring input from a user or any external source. The telescope () preferably includes a database () to store astronomical information, a processor () to control a drive mechanism (), a vision device () to sense bright stars, and a motion sensor () to generate a motion signal. When the vision device () is slewed from alignment with a first bright star to a second bright star, the motion signal is preferably representative of a measured angle between the first and second bright stars. This process is preferably repeated for several bright stars to generate several measured angles. The processor () can then use the measured angles to identify the bright stars and determine the orientation of the telescope ().