Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jun 3, 2005 6:15:40 GMT -6
Satellite Spotting Sites
Chicago Astronomer Grady is not alone in his passion for Satellite tracking. The following are some sites persuing the hobby. I'm sure the list will grow... :)
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Heaven's Above has a a great data base from Satellite info to tracking charts...
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Willie's site has interesting tools to chase down Sats...
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From Hobbyspace.com is a nice site with sat discription and many links...
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Straight from NASA is a primer on Sat spotting...
The author says: IMHO by far and away the *best* prediction software for tracking visual satellites is a small freeware package called QuickSat, by Mike McCants, which I use for the above mentioned predictions. It is not graphic, but instead generates a chronologically ordered tabular output of which satellites will pass over a given location, given a specified set of circumstances (minimum altitude, magnitude, time frame, etc.) I use it all the time and have seen hundreds of passes thanks to it. Embedded in the ZIP file is probably the best database on satellite magnitudes and radar cross sections. URL is:
kestrel.umd.edu/pub/wxsat/programs/quiks210.zip
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And another from NASA is the "J-Track" list.
They say: We created J-Track so you could quickly and easily keep track of your favorite orbiting objects. J-Track lets you choose from a fairly large list of satellites,
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The Navy also has an interest in this area. It contains a lot of tracking software to use...
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Control Views has a nice explanation...
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