An ASCOM engine that provides sensitive, robust, high-speed research-grade astrometric image processing for FITS files from any camera. A set of point-and-click tools for fast mass plate solving and survey-level asteroid and supernova hunting are included.
Typical uses include a digital finderscope which gives precise pointing to inexpensive telescope mounts, asteroid and comet searching, high-precision astrometry (detection and measurement of positions), and supernova hunting. The package comes with Visual PinPoint, a point-and-click Windows program that has automated tools for hands-off asteroid and supernova hunting with optional blinking for validation. You can use Visual PinPoint with any FITS or POSS/DSS images.
The PinPoint engine can be used by scripts written in JavaScript/JScript, VBScript, Perl, and Python. It can also be used from Excel macros, Visual Basic applications and any other Automation-capable programs.
