starsaiming

Starsaiming is a term used in astronomy and related fields to describe the practice of aligning instruments or navigation systems to celestial stars for accurate pointing, tracking, or attitude determination. The word combines "star" and "aiming" and is sometimes written with a hyphen or camel case. It is not a formal technical standard but a descriptive phrase that appears in guides, manuals, and discussions about celestial navigation and astrophotography.

In amateur astronomy, starsaiming typically refers to the process of aligning a telescope to the night sky. Operators use known star positions, plate-solving software, and mounted drives to determine pointing accuracy and adjust the mount's calibration. Proper starsaiming improves both the accuracy of target acquisition and the quality of long-exposure imaging by reducing drift.

In spacecraft navigation and instrumentation, the analogous practice is star tracking or attitude determination using star trackers. Some sources describe this as starsaiming when configuring sensors to recognize star patterns and align the spacecraft's reference frame with celestial coordinates. The technique relies on star catalogs, pattern recognition, and real-time computation of attitude.

History and usage: The principles behind starsaiming trace to early celestial navigation and photogrammetry, and modern automation uses algorithmic plate solving and sensor fusion to perform the task with minimal human input. The term remains informal and is encountered mainly in hobbyist literature and technical discussions rather than as a formal discipline.

See also: star tracker, telescope alignment, plate solving, astrometry, astrometric calibration.