Visual SAT-Flare Tracker 3D

1.0 MENU TRACKING

By means of this menu it is possible to model the satellites' surfaces and to track the flares such surfaces generate. Moreover, when the Transit Mode is active, each function can also be employed to track satellite transits across either the Sun disk or the Moon disk (in future releases also in front of arbitrary objects)
1.1 Model Satellite Surfaces

This menu opens a new window that contains the commands necessary to model the satellite's surfaces. Click here for more details. 

1.2 Search Flares / Transits

This menu opens a new window that allows the user to run either a flare search or a transit search. Click here for more details. 

1.3 Export Flares / Transits

Clicking on this item, the currently plotted flare/transit track will be exported into two text based files. The first file, whose name is Track.txt, will contains the coordinates of the flare tracks in an easy readable format which is based on the following structure:

Generated by Visual SAT-Flare Tracker 3D - By Simone Corbellini

JD, Date, Time, Longitude E [deg], Geodetic Latitude N [deg], Sun-Mirror Angle [deg]

2455040,85846593           28/07/2009  08h36'11"       -68,56        -84,203        16,6
2455040,85853566           28/07/2009  08h36'17"       -66           -84,292        16,9
2455040,85860538           28/07/2009  08h36'23"       -63,35        -84,368        17,1

.....
 

When the Transit Mode is active, the exported coordinates represent the ground locations where it is possible to observe the satellite transiting in front the specified celestial object. In that case, the last field Sun-Mirror Angle is meaningless.
The second file will contains the flare track in kml format so that the track can be displayed by menas of Google Maps / Google Earth or by means of others compatible applications. The predefined name for the second file is Track.kml.
To have this menu item active, it is necessary to activate the Show Flare/Transit Track
option.

1.4 Find Cities along Track

By clicking on this item, the cities in the flare/transit track proximity will be extracted from the list of selected cities. Only the cities less than 5 km far from the track will be reported in the output window. Please see the help about the City Window to learn how to select cities from the database. Please note that in this version it is not possible to change the maximum distance. 

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1.5 Show Satellite Flares / Shadows

By activating this options, either the reflected ray or the satellite shadow will be represented graphically accondingly to the Transit Mode option. If the Transit Mode is disabled, the reflected ray represents the ray of light that is reflected by the satellite's surfaces. The employed light source can be the Sun only, or both the Sun and the Moon, depending on the status of the Moon Light Flare/Shadow option. If the Transit Mode is active, the plotted line represents the shadow of the satellite exposed to the same light sources as in the case of the flares.
As an example, if both the Transit Mode and the Moon Light Flare/Shadow are active, the plotted line represents the satellite shadow of both the Sun and the Moon light. If the observer is located where such line impacts the ground, the satellite can be seen in front of the Sun or Moon disk. If both the Transit Mode and the Moon Light Flare/Shadow are not active, the plotted line represents the satellite flare. If the observer is located where such line impacts the ground, a sun-light flare can be observed.
The following picture represents two flares generated at the same time by the IRIDIUM 5 satellite. The green line represents a common sun-light flare, while the yellow line represents a Moon-light flare (Moon Light Flare/Shadow option active). In addition, if the Mirror ID option in the Draw Setting control panel is active, the name of the mirror that generates the ray will be showed as well. In the case represented by Fig. 1, the Sun-light flare is generated by the right main mission antenna, while the Moon-light flare by the front main mission antenna.


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1.6 Show Flare / Transit Tracks

By activating this option, the ground locations where the flare/shadow rays impact the ground along the satellite orbit will be graphically represented. The plotting is performed for the same time interval employed for the orbit plotting. Please see the Orbit Plotting frame to learn how to set the time interval for the orbit plotting. The following picture shows an example of ground flare track generated by the IRIDIUM 5 satellite. In this case the track is represented for a whole satellite's orbit. 

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1.7 Include Day-Time Flares

By enabling this option, the track obtained by the previous Show Flare/Transit Track function will be generated also for the locations where the event occurs during day-time hours. If this option is not active, the track will be represented only for those locations where the event occurs with the sun under the local horizon. Actually, the minimum Sun elevation can be set by the user by mean of the Twilight Window.

1.8 Show Flaring Surface ID

When this option is checked, the name of the flaring surface is showed next to each flare representation. The name of the surface is assigned during the creation of the surface in the satellite model. Please see the Mirror ID field into the Satellite Surface Modelling window for more details.

1.9 Moon light Flare / Shadow

When this option is checked, the Moon is used as the light source for both the calculation of flares and transits. Please note that, when this option is active, also the Sun is used as light source for Flare and Shadow representation, however, only the Moon is used by any other algorithms, such as the flare search. This means that only Moon-light flares / transits will be found with this option active.


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By Simone Corbellini