AI and the Smart Telescope: How Both May Change Amateur Astronomy: The St. Louis Astronomical Society February Meeting

“Smart telescopes” are instruments that use computer assistance to locate astronomical targets and track them, and artificial intelligence to aid in taking pictures. A basic setup, with a modest-sized telescope, can already take medium to high quality images of deep space objects. The smart telescope does everything - aligning, searching, tracking, imaging, storing, cleaning, and processing images - with just the push of a button.

Dr. Ponce de Leon will explain how advances in technology will soon enable an amateur’s smart telescope to join and use large databases of astronomical objects. This will allow international amateur scientists to assist professional astronomers in real time as they image faint star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae.

Dr. Ponce de Leon is an amateur astronomer and retired instructor of technology and innovation, international business and strategic management at Southern Illinois University and several institutions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore.

The St. Louis Astronomical Society is an organization for individuals interested in astronomy and telescopes. The public is invited to attend its meetings, telescope observing sessions, and special events. For more information about Astronomical Society events, please visit www.slasonline.org.

Free parking will be available.

Header image: An artist's illustration shows that the stars in the TOI 1338 system make an eclipsing binary — they circle each other in our plane of view. If you could hover near the planet TOI 1338 b, you would see an eclipse every 15 days. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA)