Patent attributes
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for detecting astronomical objects. An image frame is received, which includes representations of one or more astronomical objects. The received image frame is divided into several swaths. One or more swaths are selected, which include full or partial representations of one or more astronomical objects. Each of the one or more swaths and each astronomical object represented within the one or more swaths can be designated by a base-limit pair. The base-limit pairs for the selected one or more swaths are compared with base-limit pairs for one or more corresponding swaths using a difference algorithm. A list of differences in the base-limit pairs is created.