SatEph a PocketSat – user-friendly software suits for satellite and debris ephemeris calculation

piatok 2024‐04‐19 17:20 – 17:50
  • Fakulta matematiky, fyziky a informatiky, Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave

SatEph is a software tool used by astronomers at the AGO for more than a decade to calculate space debris and satellite ephemeris. Currently, a new web interface with innovative graphical features has been developed for SatEph in collaboration with the Department of Applied Informatics, which will be publicly available to the astronomical community. This tool, called PocketSat, can be used by both professional and amateur astronomers, astrophotographers and the general public. The robustness of the implementation allows to use PocketSat not only on PCs but on any type of device, e.g., cellphones. Nowadays, when the low-Earth region is dominated by megaconstellations, the contamination of astronomical scientific images becomes a real problem. Thus, PocketSat not only calculates object ephemerides, but can also be used to optimize the observation plan supporting the assessment of telescope field of view contamination during night observations. We will introduce SatEph as well as PocketSat and we will discuss PocketSat’s interfaces, functionalities and visualizations.