Re: visualize orbital planes

Bjoern Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Wed, 22 Jan 1997 08:01:35 +0100 (MET)

Bill Krosney <bkrosney@MBnet.MB.CA> wrote:
>
>I am unfamiliar with Alphonse's MirViz, but I have tried Rob Matson's 
>SkyMap.  It does great star maps....but does it do orbital planes?
>....  It is not the satellite's trajectory
>(i.e. where on Earth does it overfly over a period of time) but rather 
>the orbital plane at a single instant of time.
>
Sorry, I missed your point there.

SkyMap does orthographic projection of the globe(map) and the actual
orbit. If I remember correctly, MirViz also does the ground track, and
vertical lines to the orbit.

>.....  In between
>the orbital plane of Mir did pass directly over KSC, you can only guess at
>the time.  Only if Mir itself happens to pass directly over KSC do you 
>know when Mir's orbital plane passes over.
>
If you use the Mercator projection of TrakSat, you can measure the 
longitudinal difference between the track and the site, and convert
it to time.

------------------------------------------------------------
-- b_gimle@algonet.se              +46-8-7428086  (home)  --
-- 59.22371 N, 18.22857 E           AND member of :       --
-- http://www.algonet.se/~b_gimle   seesat-l / seesat-d   --
-- bjorn@tt-tech.se                +46-8-59095783 (office)--
------------------------------------------------------------