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 Previous: Hurricane Watch Net, WX4NHC Get Needed Reprieve as Jeanne Slows |  Next: Hams Continue to Aid Hurricane Ivan Recovery and Cleanup |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
September 17, 2004
Dump your satellite tracking software and go to this week's featured Web site to find your favorite spacecraft.
Do you use software to track Amateur Radio satellites and other man-made objects orbiting our planet? Well, forget about it! Throw the tracking software in your computer's dumpster and go to Science @ NASA's Satellite Tracking Web site where the tracking is done online. All you need is a Java-capable Web browser to track ham, weather, and search and rescue satellites, as well as the International Space Station, shuttles, the Hubble telescope, etc.
 Science @ NASA's Satellite Tracking Web site provides online, real time, three dimensional spacecraft tracking. |
The live three-dimensional tracking Java applet, J-Track 3D, displays over "700 satellites swarming about our earth. You can rotate the display and modify all kinds of settings. The display will also zoom in and out."
This is truly amazing stuff to this writer. Use your mouse to rotate the display to center it on your location, and then use your mouse to shift and click to zoom into your location and see what is orbiting above you. Click on an object in the display and its name and orbit appears.
J-Track is a Java applet that tracks space objects in two dimensions on what looks like a standard Mercator world map projection. Besides providing tracking information, this display also indicates the current grayline, so it is useful to DXers, as well as satellite users.
Did you ever see a light moving across the night sky and wonder if it's an airplane, spacecraft, or even a UFO? Many people enjoy satellite watching as a fun hobby, and you can join them using J-Pass. Using your location and the latest available tracking data, J-Pass predicts the times a satellite will pass overhead and generates a chart showing the path of the craft through your sky. This applet is so user-friendly that you do not have to configure it with your latitude and longitude. Instead, plug in your ZIP code and the applet calculates your coordinates for you.
There are many things to explore on this Web site. I spent hours finding new, neat things to try out and you will, too. I highly recommend it. Thanks to Don Dunn, AB2NM, for suggesting this Web site.
Until next week, keep on surfin'
Editor's note: To his neighbor's dismay, Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, is known to stand in the middle of his front yard at night watching for U and IFOs. To discuss FOs (identified or otherwise), surfing and other important and neat stuff with Stan, send him e-mail at wa1lou@arrl.net.
After writing this column, Stan recalled a strange sighting
he had in his front yard a couple of years ago. He spotted what seemed to be a satellite traveling in a straight south-to-north overhead path.
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| Previous: Hurricane Watch Net, WX4NHC Get Needed Reprieve as Jeanne Slows | Next: Hams Continue to Aid Hurricane Ivan Recovery and Cleanup |
