1. BurningPlatform's Avatar
    Track ISS (International Space Station) and almost 1000 other satellites, see their current orbits and locations, calculate their visible night time passes over any location.

    SATtracker for BlackBerry 10 - Track ISS and 920+ satellites-sattracker_bb10_1.jpg

    Features:

    • supports ISS and 920+ other satellites which can be quickly selected from the built-in database and changed anytime
    • automatically downloads current orbit data for highest precision, stores previously downloaded data for use without Internet connection
    • track the ISS and two other freely selectable satellites at once
    • see on map current satellite location and orbit path within the next hour with 5 minute steps
    • get a detailed list of all upcoming visible night time passes over any location (date & time, duration, azimuth and elevation of approach, transit and departure)
    • supports both GPS and manually entered coordinates of your location
    • native BB10 Cascades application.


    SATtracker for BlackBerry 10 - Track ISS and 920+ satellites-sattracker_bb10_2.jpg

    ISS (International Space Station) is one of the brightest and most spectacular object in the night sky. In favourable conditions its brightness (up to -4 Mag.) exceeds that of the brightest star (Sirius) and even the brightest planet (Venus), sometimes even by up to 8-16 times when the ISS produces flares as sunlight glints off its reflective surfaces - so it often becomes the third brightest object in our sky, after the Sun and the Moon. Many other satellites are also bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, so each of them is a great target for sky watchers.

    SATtracker for BlackBerry 10 - Track ISS and 920+ satellites-sattracker_bb10_3.jpg

    Satellites orbit the Earth at very high speeds so they pass over one's location many times a day but they are visible only in certain conditions: when the sky is dark enough not to outshine them, and the Sun is not too low under the horizon for its light to still reach the satellite and get reflected by it. This means that satellites can be seen usually only shortly after the sunset or before the sunrise, and it only takes them several minutes to cross the sky and disappear.

    That's why a satellite tracker like this one can be of great help to localize them. Just launch this program, select satellites of your interest and get all details of their locations and visible passes updated in real time.

    SATtracker for BlackBerry 10 - Track ISS and 920+ satellites-sattracker_passport_1.jpg

    SATtracker for BlackBerry 10 - Track ISS and 920+ satellites-sattracker_passport_2.jpg

    Price: $1.99
    Link: SATtracker - BlackBerry World


    tryfe and Akuji_ism like this.
    10-02-14 07:10 AM
  2. jaydee5799's Avatar
    This looks like a really detailed and intricate app. Excellent graphics and so much information!
    10-02-14 07:15 AM
  3. FF22's Avatar
    Good luck with the app. As Jaydee noted, seems quite elaborate.
    BurningPlatform likes this.
    10-02-14 08:51 AM
  4. sam81's Avatar
    Very nice application. I will certainly check this out.
    BurningPlatform likes this.
    10-02-14 09:48 PM
  5. bull_thumper's Avatar
    BurningPlatform, I just downloaded it and have a couple of observations / thoughts.

    First, would it be possible to have, in addition to your three presets, and "Anything" mode that will show what is overhead at the moment or what is visible? I'm sure that you are familiar with Heavens Above and how they have their "Daily Predictions for Brighter Sats" and to be able to set a min magnitude threshold.

    A bit of history, say for the past hour, would be nice. There have been times that people have said that they saw something in the sky and this program might be useful to help determine what it is.

    On that note, a locator mode could be of use. I really expected to click on a pass and the program go into such a mode. Think about holding your device flat and aiming it toward the sky looking across the screen using it as a sight like a firearm. That's just one idea but using the device to help point the way and show the the inclination could be helpful for some users.

    Also, have you considered near-Earth comets and asteroids? I personally would not go further than that as there are plenty of other applications that handle stellar objects.

    And finally, Iridium flares are common enough that it could be useful here, as well.

    As for your user defined sats, a search function could be very useful in lieu of scroll through your comprehensive sat list.

    Anyhow, just take these thoughts as suggestions. I'll be watching to see how your program progresses and thanks for developing for this awesome platform.
    BurningPlatform likes this.
    10-02-14 10:30 PM
  6. BurningPlatform's Avatar
    Hi bull_thumper, thank you for downloading SATtracker and for your feedback.

    First, would it be possible to have, in addition to your three presets, and "Anything" mode that will show what is overhead at the moment or what is visible? I'm sure that you are familiar with Heavens Above and how they have their "Daily Predictions for Brighter Sats" and to be able to set a min magnitude threshold.
    The program supports over 920 satellites. In order for the application to be able to show you what's visible now it would take downloading orbit data of all of them (they change daily) and then calculating orbits of all satellites which would take...... minutes.
    Heavens Above is a website, located on some server which runs permanently. So once day, in the background, it can automatically download all orbit data of hundreds of satellites, and then, also in the background and invisibly to the user, every couple minutes (using a CRON job, cgi script, or any other scheduled action), calculate all orbits to check which satellite is where - this way Heavens Above can always have all data ready for such "Show me what's visible now" mode. I'm afraid that on a smartphone it is undoable. You wouldn't want to wait minutes for the program to do all the calculations for all satellites before being able to show you which of them are just above you, and you probably wouldn't want to keep the application running all the time to do such calculations in the background in order to have the data ready when you want to check what's visible...

    I'm going to add a similar function to StarFinder to show which stars and planets are currently visible, but calculating star positions is much, much quicker than satellite orbits (stars don't move through the sky, they only move WITH the sky - it is enough to calculate coordinates of currently visible sky area and then just check which stars' fixed coordinates belong to it - a few seconds even for hundreds of objects). Calculating positions of over 900 satellites (each of them having a completely different orbit, speed, etc.) would take hundreds of times longer.

    The only option I can imagine in case of satellites would be to run a web server which would do all the calculations every minute or so, and produce a small file containing just all statellites' current ground coordinates, always ready to be quickly downloaded by the application and for direct use so that no other calculations are needed on the smartphone. This would work fine, but it would boost the project to a different dimension.

    A bit of history, say for the past hour, would be nice. There have been times that people have said that they saw something in the sky and this program might be useful to help determine what it is.
    Can't easily be done for the same reason as above.

    On that note, a locator mode could be of use. I really expected to click on a pass and the program go into such a mode. Think about holding your device flat and aiming it toward the sky looking across the screen using it as a sight like a firearm. That's just one idea but using the device to help point the way and show the the inclination could be helpful for some users.
    This is how StartFinder works to show star/planet locations, as in such case (static stars, and planets moving by an inch per hour) it makes sense - none of them will change location before you point the phone at position shown on the display. But I am not sure if it can have any real use with satellites (at least those not geostationary) crossing the whole visible sky usually within a minute or two. Before you'd manage to point the phone at the location shown, the satellite would travel some further 10-20 degrees, and if you kept hunting for it with the phone it'd eventually disappear....

    I've tested this application many times myself and it really isn't difficult to find the direction shown, e.g. NE, (especially that there is a compass showing you that direction) and once you look there you just can't miss that quickly moving bright spot (usually the only one). I'm not convinced if it takes anything more than that.... For finding stars or planets such a precise guidance is needed because there are hundreds of static spots in the part of the sky you look at, but that fast moving satellite is the only one, really hard to miss.

    .... on a second thought, I guess I can add an altitude indicator to show vertical angle to look at - might be useful for those who can't figure out what an angle 30 or 60 degrees is. It can show an arrow illustrating the altitude and that arrow would change color once the phone is pointed at correct angle.

    Also, have you considered near-Earth comets and asteroids? I personally would not go further than that as there are plenty of other applications that handle stellar objects.
    Please check my StarFinder app for stars, planets, Messier objects, constellations, asterisms and meteor shower radiants. If I decide to add some more types of natural stellar objects like asteroids or comets then probably to StarFinder not to SATtracker which I'd prefer to support artificial Earth satellites only.

    As for your user defined sats, a search function could be very useful in lieu of scroll through your comprehensive sat list.
    Agreed! I will add a search function soon.

    Anyhow, just take these thoughts as suggestions. I'll be watching to see how your program progresses and thanks for developing for this awesome platform.
    Once again, many thanks your your feedback. And apologies for not being able to address some of your ideas/expectations, but those two functions would really require a lot of calculation time, beyond usability on a smartphone, and at this point I wouldn't want to run a web server doing all the calculations for the application. As for the 'locator' mode, I'll think about adding the "altimeter" and maybe some more. Search function will come soon. If you have any other ideas in the future, please post them.
    Last edited by BurningPlatform; 10-03-14 at 09:15 AM.
    bull_thumper likes this.
    10-03-14 01:34 AM

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