In an example embodiment, each scope can include an optical transceiver and camera. The optical transceiver in the first optical scope can include a light array that is used to emit a bright pulse of light as a flash. The camera in the second optical scope captures this flash in a camera image. The camera image can then be processed to spatially localize the flash relative to the cross-hairs of the camera, wherein these cross-hairs have a relationship that corresponds to a central region (e.g., a center point) of a photodetector array in the optical transceiver of the second optical scope. A control system can then drive a positioning system for the second optical scope to adjust the positioning of the second optical scope so that the center of the photodetector of the second optical scope aligns with the spatially localized flash.
This process can then be repeated but where the light array in the second optical scope acts as the flash emitter and the camera in the first optical scope captures the image of the flash so that the first optical scope can be controllably positioned so that its photodetector array's central region aligns with the spatially localized flash from the second optical scope.
These alignments can be iteratively repeated until the system determines that the two optical scopes are sufficiently aligned.