Author Topic: Mac app for plotting satellite orbits and more! (Read 14645 times)

RichardF · « **Reply #20 on:** 04/28/2013 07:15 pm »

Congratulations! you found the first bug.

Actually this bug was a consequence of Celestrak increasing the number of datasets to include the Breeze debris.

I can confirm that it exists, as you describe, and that I have just fixed it here. I will submit an update to the Mac App Store ASAP, and we will see how long it takes to appear.

If you need an update of the executable before that, let me know and I'll see how that could be done.

JimOman · « **Reply #21 on:** 05/01/2013 07:38 pm »

That app looks gorgeous.

Does anyone know of a good one like this for android or windows? Haven't had much luck so far.

I run Android Jelly Bean on my tab and phone and Windows 8 on my laptop.

Jim

RichardF · « **Reply #22 on:** 05/01/2013 07:57 pm »

Thanks for the compliment!

I can't help you with Android, but for Windows I know of a few. It has to be said that I built SatTrackerBasic (and the coming SatTracker (not Basic)) with particular requirements in mind. So not all features are present in all softwares.

Anyway, for Windows, there is Nova (http://www.nisa.com) and Orbitron (www.stoff.pl). It's this last, Orbitron, which was used on the big screen at ESA's ESOC control centre, which prompted me to write SatTrackerBasic.

There are, of course, other Windows solutions, like Satellite Toolkit (STK, see www.agi.com). This is a truly excellent software, but is priced well out of the reach of individuals.

Hope this helps.

cheers,
Richard

JimOman · « **Reply #23 on:** 05/01/2013 08:23 pm »

I'll check those out, thank you!

Jim

RichardF · « **Reply #24 on:** 05/03/2013 01:25 pm »

Quote from: RichardF on 04/28/2013 07:15 pm

I can confirm that it exists, as you describe, and that I have just fixed it here. I will submit an update to the Mac App Store ASAP, and we will see how long it takes to appear.

It took a bit longer to make the Mac App Store submission, since I was away from my main development machine at the start of the week. However it is now done: submitted yesterday.

For your information I reinforced the TLE checking at the same time (for all TLEs, but intended to catch malformed local files). In particular, note that the TLE format should comply exactly with the standard, including the validity of the checksum field and that the length of the two data lines shall be exactly 69 characters (no trailing spaces).

cheers,
Richard

RichardF · « **Reply #25 on:** 05/09/2013 12:11 pm »

Version 1.0.1, with the bug-fix for local files of TLEs, is now in the Mac App Store. About a week turn-around since I submitted it.

cheers,
Richard

daj24 · « **Reply #26 on:** 05/09/2013 01:10 pm »

Can't wait to get home and load it. No more VM of windows to do sat tracking! Thanks so much!

Overflow · « **Reply #27 on:** 06/11/2013 01:44 am »

One sad windows user here..

LOX · « **Reply #28 on:** 07/27/2013 10:23 am »

A big thank you to Richard Francis for sharing his satellite tracker and making it available for us Mac Users. Mac Users have been neglected for far too long when it comes to having a professional looking satellite tracker. At one stage, I very nearly went back to being a Windows User because I used to have the excellent WXTrack and Orbitron.

I was having withdrawal symptoms. I was fed-up having to go Online all the time to use various website trackers. Now I've got my own again. SatTrackerBasic looks so cool on my iMac when used in full screen. It's so easy to use, is highly configurable to your own liking and works flawlessly. I can't praise it enough.

Here are three screen grabs of my current set-up. The first Map (NASA Blue Marble) shows clouds of the last 24 hours which is downloaded from Xplanetclouds every 24 hours or every three if you take out a subscription.

The second screen grab shows without clouds and the third shows the plain map without clouds.

Richard mentions on his website, ClearAndDark, that there will be enhanced versions called SatTracker and SatTracker Pro.

RichardF · « **Reply #29 on:** 06/11/2014 12:17 pm »

Hi. I'm Richard, the author of SatTrackerBasic. The app hasn't been updated in rather a long time as I've been very busy, both at work and in my free time (building an observatory in my free time, by the way).

But I'm working up to a major update, which will also see the title change to simply SatTracker (I can barely keep up with the one version, so clearly 3 is too much). I have in mind AOS and LOS predictions as well as predictions of satellite transits in front of the Sun and Moon.

In the meantime, somebody has posted a most unkind but unspecific review on the US App Store: "I've used most every satellite tracking program released in the past 30 years. This one clearly is the lamest. In fact if this was released 25 years ago I would still give it a one star rating. Not worth .99 cents let alone 13.00. This is something you'd expect to find on a 1990 shareware diskette."

If you disagree with this review, please post a review of your own. In any case, please rate the app!

thanks,
Richard

Star One · « **Reply #30 on:** 06/11/2014 02:56 pm »

For myself I prefer using sky trackers on my iPad. Things like VR mode & the whole concept of having it on a mobile device I find easier.

Do you have any plans to do an iOS version?

RichardF · « **Reply #31 on:** 06/11/2014 03:04 pm »

That's on the radar for sure, but I need a lot more time. That's because it needs a switch away from the development environment I'm using (Xojo) to Xcode. I have been planning to make this switch for exactly the reason to bring it to iOS, but, if my commitments remain as foreseen, that's about a year away.

cheers,
Richard

Star One · « **Reply #32 on:** 06/11/2014 05:34 pm »

Quote from: RichardF on 06/11/2014 03:04 pm

That's on the radar for sure, but I need a lot more time. That's because it needs a switch away from the development environment I'm using (Xojo) to Xcode. I have been planning to make this switch for exactly the reason to bring it to iOS, but, if my commitments remain as foreseen, that's about a year away.

cheers,
Richard

That's good to hear I look forward to seeing.

LOX · « **Reply #33 on:** 07/24/2014 12:38 am »

Quote from: RichardF on 06/11/2014 12:17 pm

But I'm working up to a major update, which will also see the title change to simply SatTracker (I can barely keep up with the one version, so clearly 3 is too much). I have in mind AOS and LOS predictions as well as predictions of satellite transits in front of the Sun and Moon.

That's great news to read Richard. I was beginning to wonder if and when you were going to find time to update satTracker.

Quote from: RichardF on 06/11/2014 12:17 pm

In the meantime, somebody has posted a most unkind but unspecific review on the US App Store: "I've used most every satellite tracking program released in the past 30 years. This one clearly is the lamest. In fact if this was released 25 years ago I would still give it a one star rating. Not worth .99 cents let alone 13.00. This is something you'd expect to find on a 1990 shareware diskette."

If you disagree with this review, please post a review of your own. In any case, please rate the app!

I wrote a review on the UK Mac App store back in July 2013 resulting in 3 out of 3 Users who found it helpful. I am the only person to have done so at the moment. The AOS features is one of the options I mentioned so glad to see that you will be implementing that feature.

Although mobile devices have become extremely popular over the last few years I do worry about the future of the desktop PC. Many astronomy apps I have on my desktop haven't been updated for a couple of years now but IOS versions frequently do. I can't help thinking if developers are slowly turning their backs on Mac OSX.