Aurora 3d-measurement from whole-sky time series image using fish-eye stereo camera

Abstract

Three-dimensional analysis of aurora is important for the research of solar wind and magnetic storms, because aurora reflects the relationship between solar wind and terrestrial magnetism. Therefore a method to reconstruct a three-dimensional shape of aurora precisely is demanded. In this paper, a method to measure three-dimensional shape of auroa by using only two fish-eye cameras is proposed. Two fish-eye cameras were installed at Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A to get the time series images of aurora. The images photographed by the cameras are performed calibration by using the star to estimate the camera attitude. The dense feature points are detected from the images of aurora by using template matching though the image of aurora has few characteristic pattern. Moreover, a feature point tracking between two images continuing in time is performed to improve precision of the feature point detection. Then the three-dimensional coordinates of feature points are calculated by triangulation, aurora shape is measured and visualized.