Satscape Manual ENG, Dla radioamatorów, Program do śledzenia satelitów
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Satscape Manual ª 2003 By Scott Hather Edition Two – May 2003 (English) Table of Contents Introduction i Chapter 1 Setting up Satscape 1 Main Settings 1 Audio Recording Settings 2 Speech Pack Settings 2 Miscellaneous Settings 2 Chapter 2 Satellite Groups and Favourites 4 What Are Groups? 4 What are Favourites? 4 Adding New Groups 5 Deleting a group 5 Adding a celestrak group 5 Selecting Favourites 5 Selecting a Primary Satellite 6 Other features 6 Chapter 3 Internet Updates 7 Updating “Keps” 7 Synchronising your PC’s Clock 8 Updating the Database 8 Internet Connection Type 8 Chapter 4 Locations 9 Chapter 5 2D Settings 10 Ground track length 10 Map update speed 10 Changing the 2D Map Image (Jpeg) 10 Changing the Horizon view Backdrop (Jpeg) 11 Other options 11 Chapter 6 3D Settings 12 Sun’s Brightness 12 Ambient Light 12 Label Font Size 12 Orbit/Ground track length 12 Star Brightness 13 Texture Quality 13 Other Settings 13 Chapter 7 Other Launch pad menu Items 14 Table of Contents Continued Chapter 8 Using the 3D View 15 Main Features 15 Navigation and display panel 15 Moving around 16 Look At Modes 16 Options Menu 16 ETA Panel 16 Chapter 9 The 2D Views 17 Using the map 17 Expand Window 18 Menu Commands 18 Chapter 10 The Horizon View 19 Interpreting the view 19 19 Menu Items Chapter 11 Tabular Satellite Data 20 Chapter 12 Pass Predictions 21 Types of predictions 21 Instant Prediction 21 Preset Predictions 21 22 Adding a new Job Chapter 13 Iridium Satellite Flares 23 Chapter 14 Satellite Database 24 Chapter 15 Rotor and Radio Control 25 Chapter 16 Behind the Scenes 27 Introduction S atscape is one of several satellite tracking programs available today. I originally written it for myself, as other programs available at the time were very good, but had one or two little things I didn’t like, or certain features weren’t implemented, so I wanted a satellite-tracking program that did what I wanted it to do. Another thing was that there was a lot of programming technology available that wasn’t being taken advantage of, such as synthesised speech and advanced graphics, user interfacing and internet integration. Satscape uses pure maths to work out where each satellite is now, and at any point in time by using “Keplerian elements”, these are numbers that describe mathematically where a satellite is at a certain point in time, its heading and speed, and uses that as a reference point to calculate where it will be some time after that point. However, using this reference point can become gradually inaccurate, due to ‘variables’ that aren’t taken into account such as firing of thrusters onboard the satellite, so these elements need to be updated from time to time to ensure accuracy, this is done in Satscape by a simple ‘internet update’ feature that only needs to be done every 2 to 8 weeks at the most, or you can load them into your PC using a floppy disk if no internet connection is possible. One other thing that needs to be done is that your PC’s clock needs to be accurate to ensure the prediction of the satellite in real-time is accurate, this also, is done by a simple internet update, that will synchronise your PC’s clock with a military atomic clock. I can’t take full credit for Satscape, as its made up of several parts, the main one being the “calculation library”, this is a kind of plug-in program written by David J Taylor, based on Dr. T.S. Kelso’s original code, that does all the raw maths involved in finding out a satellite’s position, Satscape sends the satellite’s name and the current or future time to this calculation library, and it gives out the raw numbers about that satellite back to Satscape, which can then display them in a nice formatted manner, or use them to position the graphical elements on the screen, so no, I’m not a mathematical wizard! The “Skinning” effect seen in all satscape’s windows is another plug-in program that does all the hard work for me. On the 3D view, Microsoft’s DirectX system does all the hard work of sending the correct graphical information to your PC’s graphics card, that way, Satscape simply needs to send it information about what object to place where in the 3D world. So as you see, my workload has been dramatically reduced thanks to other software author’s work, and I’m very grateful to these people for providing these plug-ins for freeware authors like myself. One other thing I’ve tried to do since deciding to put this program of mine on the internet is to cut- down on the astronomical jargon, to make Satscape easy to understand and use, so phases like “orthographic projection” have been replaced by simpler terms such as “3D View”, also listening to and acting upon suggestions I’ve had over the years from people using the program, so they can get the most out of it, with the least amount of effort. Enjoy… Scott Hather i [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |