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anovikov01/21/20251 replyview on HN

How do you find your location from one image of stars? It is possible if you have a precise vertical but you don't have a precise vertical on a moving UAV. That is, you need an inertial system on top that will provide you with a vertical.

With satellite images, you don't need anything apart from time. And no, you don't need to "make a video to see satellites move", you start with your approximate location, make an image and find satellites within a circle where each of them might be, starting with the slowest moving - furthest away from you - ones (they provide poorest precision of coordinates because parallax is small, but you need to start with something, but their search circle will also be smaller), locating those, you get better coordinates of yours and the search circle for each satellite becomes smaller, then you can find faster moving satellites too to get precise coordinates of yourself.


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nuccy01/21/2025

You are right: to find a location from a star image you need a true horizon, but unless UAV is pulling some Gs even a basic accelerometer would give you the horizon, accuracy of that estimation will limit the accuracy of your location.

Regarding satellites: so "starting with the slowest moving" requires a series of images, doesn't it? Then how do you know "your approximate location"? From stars? In theory I understand what you say but practically it would be much more complicated and the obtained accuracy would not be better than with the stars, since in either case you also need a horizon to know your location.

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