● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 neutral
New tool visualizes satellite passes and retrieves imagery for any location
Key points
- Tool identifies satellites passing over a specified location in the last 7 days.
- Retrieves imagery from Sentinel-2, Landsat, and NASA for identified passes.
- Calculates passes using SGP4 on the CelesTrak catalog.
- All 17,000 orbital objects are rendered on the GPU.
Satellite Pass and Imagery Retrieval
A new web application has been released that enables users to determine which satellites have passed over any given location within the past seven days. The tool processes user-provided coordinates to identify relevant satellite transits.
For each identified pass, the application attempts to retrieve corresponding imagery from data sources such as Sentinel-2, Landsat, and NASA. Imagery is displayed only if a real image exists for that specific pass.
Technical Implementation
The system utilizes the SGP4 algorithm with the CelesTrak catalog to calculate satellite passes, completing the search in approximately half a second. It accounts for all 17,000 objects in orbit, rendering them on the GPU and solving Kepler's equation for each frame.
The developer addressed challenges such as discrepancies in Sentinel-2 timestamps, which can be 5-10 minutes off from the actual satellite crossing time.
Privacy and Data Sources
The application does not store user location data. The developer is seeking feedback, particularly regarding additional data sources that could be integrated into the tool.
The project's source code is available on GitHub.
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Primary sources
GitHub dev-Armaan/satellitesReporting from
A new web-based tool allows users to input any location and view all satellites that passed over it in the last seven days, along with corresponding Sentinel-2, Landsat, or NASA images. The application uses SGP4 on the CelesTrak catalog to calculate satellite passes and displays imagery only when available.