Tutorial 19 — Satellite and Meteor Detection in the Night Sky with Jetson

Watch the night sky automatically and capture every satellite and meteor that crosses your camera frame. The Jetson distinguishes between the two, saves the best frames, sends you a notification, and logs a timestamped catalogue of every event.

What you will learn

• How to detect moving streaks in long-exposure night sky frames
• How to classify satellites (slow, straight) vs meteors (fast, bright)
• How to use the Hough line transform to detect linear streaks
• How to cross-reference with Heavens-Above satellite pass predictions
• How to set up an all-night automated watch session with notifications

Step 1 — Run the night sky watcher

cd ~/tutorials/19-satellite-meteor-detection
python3 sky_watch.py     --source 0     --exposure 2.0     --save-events ~/sky_events/     --notify email

Step 2 — Detect a streak using Hough transform

import cv2, numpy as np

def detect_streak(frame, prev_frame):
    # Find what changed between frames
    diff  = cv2.absdiff(frame, prev_frame)
    grey  = cv2.cvtColor(diff, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
    _, thresh = cv2.threshold(grey, 30, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY)

    # Look for straight lines (Hough transform)
    lines = cv2.HoughLinesP(thresh, 1, np.pi/180,
                             threshold=40, minLineLength=50, maxLineGap=10)
    return lines is not None and len(lines) > 0

Step 3 — Classify: satellite or meteor?

def classify_event(streak_length_px, brightness, duration_frames, fps):
    speed_pxf = streak_length_px / duration_frames   # pixels per frame
    if speed_pxf < 5 and duration_frames > fps * 3:
        return "satellite"     # slow, sustained movement
    elif brightness > 200 and duration_frames < 3:
        return "meteor"        # very bright, very fast
    else:
        return "unknown"

Step 4 — Email notification when an event is captured

import smtplib
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.image import MIMEImage

def send_event_email(event_type, image_path, timestamp):
    msg = MIMEMultipart()
    msg['Subject'] = f"Sky event captured: {event_type} at {timestamp}"
    with open(image_path, 'rb') as f:
        img = MIMEImage(f.read())
    msg.attach(img)
    # SMTP config in ~/tutorials/19-satellite-meteor-detection/config.yaml

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