Patent ID: 8597025

Claim:
A celestial weapons orientation measuring system for measuring the pointing direction of a weapon at a time of a simulated discharge of the weapon, said system comprising: A) a telescope bore sighted with the weapon and adapted to permit accurate pointing of the weapon at a target; and B) a miniature celestial direction detection device, for determining pointing directions of the weapon, mounted on and aligned with the weapon and comprising: 1) at least one camera for viewing a large portion of the sky, said camera comprising: a) a wide angle fish eye lens and b) a sensor having a focal plane array of at least 350,000 pixels and adapted to provide camera images of at least one celestial object chosen from the following group of celestial objects: the sun, the moon and at least one star; and 2) a gravity based MEMS inclinometer adapted to provide elevation measurements relative to local vertical and 3) a least one microprocessor programmed with: a) an astronomical algorithm containing a celestial catalog defining locations of celestial objects based on known time; and b) coordinate transformation software for converting pixel data into astronomical coordinates; c) software adapted to compute pointing directions of the weapon at the time of a simulated discharge based on: i) an inclination of the system as measured by the inclinometer and ii) the azimuth of the pointing direction of the weapon based on (a) known time, (b) known weapon position, (c) known positions of the at least one celestial object as provided by the celestial catalog and (d) the image of the at least one celestial object as imaged by the camera; C) a first GPS detector located on or nearby the weapon for determining location of the weapon; D) a second GPS detector mounted on a target such as a pretend enemy soldier or E) a processor or processor components with software programmed with an algorithm for analyzing orientation information from said miniature celestial direction detection device and weapon and target location information to determine if the target would have been hit or missed by a discharge from said weapon; wherein the weapon is pointed at the target based on a visual image of the target obtained through the telescope, and wherein a successful hit or miss is determined by the processor or processor components based on known locations of the weapon and the target and pointing directions of the weapon as determined by the at least one microprocessor.