However, it’s not quite what we need — the satellite hasn’t been launched yet so there are no publicly available TLE’s. We have a local file with a TLE offset in time from the future launch date to the epoch right now. Can I make this work? It would also be good to have more rapid updates (e.g. once per second)

Richard

http://orbitingfrog.com/cgi-bin/anyloc.pl?id=35870&url=http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/science.txt&hor=Y&extrude=Y&path=1.5

Like Pablo I’m interested in tracking NASA Earth Observation Satellites. And I would track the Shuttle missions. Are there KML files for these or do I need a separate file of TLEs for these? Above I see mention of TLE files for GPS and Iridium where does one find these?
Best Regards SGLS

I’m interested in learning about the math behind the work you’ve done. Can you share your Perl scripts, or are they proprietary? If not, what is a good reference for a beginner? I’m interested in the basics, like can the horizon footprint be calculated from the latitude, longitude, and altitude values of a satellite, or would I need other values from the TLE file?

thanks
Marc Tremblay

FYI, the Advanced Tracker is dead-on accurate when set to show the ISS. The graphic settings and icon on the ISS Locator are much more pleasing, though.

Also, it appears that the ISS Locator display might possibly be showing the location around an hour behind real-time. I hope the problem is that simple!

Best always,
Jason Glass

Thanks for creating and sharing your ISS and Satellite locator KML’s for Google Earth. The graphics and functionality are really nice. I hope you can help me fix a problem with it, though.

The position shown for the ISS on my system is grossly inaccurate, disagreeing with all of the online real-time trackers that I can find.

Also, I visually observed the ISS and Shuttle pass overhead from my location two nights ago and the other trackers were right-on, while this one was way off.

I have double checked my system time & date settings and GE time & date, and everything looks right. It is refreshing every 30 seconds, as prescribed. Is there a problem with your server? Perhaps it is using old TLE data? Please let me know.

BTW, if you have a DirecTV HD receiver connected to the internet, check out my ISS Orbital Tracking TV App.

Best wishes,
Jason Glass

TNX AGN

Woof.

TNX

ROOF!

This is great stuff you do.

I noticed the Iridium locator is not working. The network link loads in Google Earth, but it does not display.

This is the link I am using
http://orbitingfrog.com/cgi-bin/anyloc.pl?id=ALL&url=http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/iridium.txt&path=N&hor=N

I haven’t used it for a few months so I am not sure if something has changed or if I have done something stupid?

Kind regards,
Phil

Can you add the id number to the satellite info in the 100 brightest objects? That way it could be cut and pasted to the id of the Satellite Locator. (Or provide an option to highlight one of the 100 objects and automatically get in the Satellite Locator.)

Is there anyway to change the color of the line? I tried adding &col=XXXX where X is hexadecimal value, but it didn’t work.

btw, It would be a very good idea to display, instead of the horizon, a square representing the area covered by the sensor. I don’t know if that would be possible, adding some kml that’s reads the data coming from the network link. I will have to investigate that.

But again, fantastic work!

1) Other than stylisticly, anyloc.pl and sciloc.pl are identical. The time lag is just a refresh rate effect from Google Earth. The path difference could be a difference in length or a difference in the source data TLEs from Celestrak. I’ll double check this at some point to be sure.

2) The dateline/poles issue is annoying but I haven’t figured it out yet.

3) For very high objects such as those, the horizon can be larger than the Earth. When this happens they seem to artificially wrap around apparently seeming small again. I suppose I could fix this by setting the maximum horizon as the circumference of the Earth. Will give it a go sometime.

1. I noticed you use different scripts and probably with different calculations each, as the results vary and the same satellite is positioned at different places and sometimes with different paths.
i.e. ISS Zarya:
http://orbitingfrog.com/cgi-bin/anyloc.pl?id=25544
lags behind by about 5 minutes and on a slightly different path than
http://orbitingfrog.com/cgi-bin/issloc.pl

2. The horizon circle breaks at the date/time line, and I also noticed it to break at the south pole in a weird way.

3. Why are the horizons for the geostationary satellites, i.e. http://orbitingfrog.com/cgi-bin/anyloc.pl?id=20315&url=http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/geo.txt (INTELSAT 602 (IS-602)) so small if the satellite is way up there (Current altitude: 35782.69 km)?

Kind regards,

Robi

Have a nice day

Have a nice day

How can I do ?

Thanks in advance

I didn’t mean to complain. If I gave you that impression I apologize. On my end I feel powerless. I can well imagine you have a lot on your plate with your site, your studies + everything else. I am grateful for the work you do. And as far as your question for hosting your perl script on another server I can’t help. Sorry.

Regards.

Alain.

Does anyone know a god way of hosting perl scripts online other than on one’s own server?

I give up.

Regards.

Alain Desson.

thanks for your explanation. ISS locator and Satellite Locator are always on when my Google Earth is on, which is most of the day. Although I have never modified the original refresh rate in those files would that be considered by your server as an excessive usage? If so what would be recognized as an acceptable usage. This use is particularly so when there is some special event related to ISS, as a shuttle launch, an ATM or Soyouz rendez-vous.

Regards.

Alain.