Re: Possibly "silly" questions

From: Tony Beresford (aberesford@iprimus.com.au)
Date: Thu Jun 14 2001 - 01:40:37 PDT

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    At 17:07 14/06/01 , Steve Adams wrote:
    
    >Does the term "Geostationary" mean that the satellite remains fixed in orbit
    >above a geographical position on Earth?
    >(i.e. orbits at such a speed as to appear "still" in the sky).
    yes it does Steve, but this can only be for points on the Earth's equator.
    >
    >If this is not true, are there such satellites and what is the correct
    >terminology?
    If the orbital period is 1 sideraeal day or some simple fraction, the
    satellite can be called geosynchronous even if its inclination isnt zero,
    or its orbit accentric. Examples like the Sirius Direct radio broadcast satellites
    The GPS satellites ( 2 revs/day, circular but inclined) and the molniya
    orbit ( 63.6 degree inclination, eccentric, 2 revs/day)
    >If such do exist can someone suggest any that might be visible from my
    >location listed below.
    Get Mike McCants highfly programme and his geo.zip TLE file and
    run HIGHFLY for your location, will give you predictions for all
    the satellites in the file. True geostationary satellites within 50 degrees
    longitude of christchurch will always be visible at around declination
    +6.5 for Christchurch's latitude. The "de-orbited" ones
    will also show up in the predictions but with a wider declination
    range.
    There are of course not as many around the dateline as stationed over the americas.
    Tony Beresford
    
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