Satellite Hunting
Stephmon@aol.com
Sun, 11 Apr 1999 17:17:13 EDT
After many long nights and gallons of coffee, my new prediction software is
ready for download at
http://stephen.fathom.org/sathunt.html
Satellite Hunting 1.0 is a shareware application that generates visible pass
predictions from Two Line Elements files. It is fully native to 32 bit
Windows (95/98/NT) and takes advantage of the graphical user interface (GUI).
The predicted passes can be viewed in the easy to follow 'spread sheet' style
predictions window, printed to any windows compatible printer, or pasted to
the windows clipboard for editing in a word processor, or Email program.
Click on the name or NORAD number in the prediction window and Satellite
Hunting generates a 'pop-up' window with information about that object. This
information generally includes country of origin, mission and observing
details such as color, whether the object flashes or flares, etc. Registered
users of Satellite Hunting will receive timely updates of the information
file as new objects are launched and as I improve the existing database (the
downloaded version includes info on fewer than 500 objects). This file is
also used to include the name and/or mean magnitude of an object if the TLE
doesn't include this information.
Satellite Hunting generates local star maps with a graphic representation of
the selected satellite's path. Click on the plot to zoom in, or shift-click
to zoom out. This graphic can be saved as a windows bitmap (.bmp) for editing
in a graphic program, such as "Paint."
I invite everyone to visit the Satellite Hunting homepage at
http://stephen.fathom.org/sathunt.html for a complete list of features,
screenshots and online help. Please understand that this is the very first
release. Some features are less sophisticated than others. For the time
being, most of the user instructions and "Help" will be found on the website.
The program includes a simple web browser which launches directly to the URL
above. Feel free to E-mail me with questions, comments and suggestions for
improvement. stephmon@aol.com
_____________________
Stephen Fels - Satellite Hunting Users Group (SHUG)
http://stephen.fathom.org
stephmon@aol.com