Satellites in Guide/lunar bug

Bill J. Gray Jan 14, 2001

Hi Nils,

You can get satellite elements from a fair number of sites, but my
personal favorite is one maintained by Mike McCants:

http://users2.ev1.net/~mmccants/tles/index.html

I download ALLDAT.TLE so I can show every satellite currently up
there (or close to it, anyway); GEO.TLE so I can show just the
geostationary/geosynchronous ones; and MCCANTS.TLE so I can get
just the brighter objects.

At that point, you can use "Settings... TLE=" to select the
element set you want to use; go into "Display... Data Shown" to
turn satellites on; then go to assorted satellites, click on
them, get 'more info' about them, and so forth.

Several people have mentioned to me finding the Astra satellites,
which I gather are around mag 8 or so. As far as I know, those
of us outside Europe don't have anything quite so large to look at
in geostationary/geosynchronous orbit.

And a question to all. Several embarrassing bugs turned up in the
30 November version. I've tracked down all except one: the failure
of the "Lunar Eclipses" table function, mentioned by several people,
but which works fine on my computer. If anyone has information about
this bug (when it happens, whether it's intermittent or always happens),
please send me a private e-mail. Once I get this fixed, I'll post an
update.

-- Bill