Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
Satellite watching with GoSatWatch for iPhone
Viewing earth-orbiting satellites, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station with the naked eye is a blast. I've been hooked on watching satellites since my folks pointed out Echo-1 to me when I was just 3 years old. Now I find myself looking skyward every time I'm under a dark sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of a tiny light speeding across my field of view. If you're going to try to watch a satellite pass, it helps to know when the shiniest spacecraft are going to be zooming overhead. Amateur radio enthusiasts who want to make AMSAT or ARISS contacts need the same information. There's a cool new iPhone app called GoSatWatch (US$9.99, click opens iTunes) that makes looking for earth-orbiting spacecraft a piece of cake.
Once the app is loaded on your iPhone, all you need to do is tap the colorful icon to start the app, then do some initial setup. You should set up your location and allow the iPhone 3G's GPS receiver to determine your local latitude and longitude (iPhone and iPod touch users can enter that information in by hand if desired). More than one observing location can be pre-set in the app.
Next, you can choose which spacecraft or type of spacecraft (Iridium, space junk, visible, etc..) you want to "follow". If you want to watch the International Space Station (ISS) cruising overhead, tap on its button in the Satellite window to toggle its visibility on the map. You can even toggle to see all visible satellites, which is pretty cool because there are often a group of satellites cruising overhead at any time.
There are several different views available to you:
- Map, which shows your earthbound location as an eyeball (gotta like that!) and then shows the current location and ground track of the chosen satellite(s). There's a red oblong shape around the satellite that shows the area of line-of-sight visibility. Left and right arrows let you look at successive orbits, while a clock icon animates the flight of the satellite over time as you drag your finger across the screen.
- Sky shows the overhead sky 360° from horizon to horizon. This is where you can get an idea of where the satellite will be tracking as it flies overhead. The track shows bright yellow during the time that the satellite is in direct sunlight or dim yellow for the time that it's in shadow and won't be visible during the pass.
- Passes, which has a list of the start and end times for visible passes, complete with the peak angular height above the horizon and visible magnitude.
- Satellites is where you choose what to look at. Of particular interest are the Space Shuttle, ISS, and the Hubble Space Telescope, but Iridium communications satellites are fun to watch because they "flare" to extreme brightness.
Now, what's a good reason to purchase this app? There are a couple of them. First, the Space Shuttle isn't going to be flying for very much longer, so it can be fun and instructive to yourself and your family to see it fly overhead as a bright dot in the night sky. You'll have your chance to see it and the Hubble Space Telescope during the upcoming Hubble Servicing Mission.
Second, it's the International Year of Astronomy. Watching the night skies in all of their glory is fun to do whether you're using GoSatWatch to check out man-made objects or another app like SkyWalk to see the natural objects.
As the nights get warmer (for those of us in the northern hemisphere), be sure to get out your iPhone and see what's above you. You might be surprised! Take a look at the gallery to see screenshots of some of the GoSatWatch features.
Late edit: Developer Richard Hein let us know that his company also has an app called GoSkyWatch Planetarium, which is great for using your iPhone or iPod touch to find those non-man-made objects in the night sky.
Gallery: GoSatWatch 1.2 for iPhone
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cheese Rations said 2:22PM on 4-23-2009
Very cool, but $10 is a little steep in my opinion. If it were chopped down to $4.99 I would at least seriously consider purchasing it. I'm not even thinking about it at $10, though.
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PodunkPaul said 2:45PM on 4-23-2009
I would think $2.99 is my jump in price.
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Pete said 3:09PM on 4-23-2009
I agree - $10 is a bit much just to see satellites.
I log in to Heaven's Above to see all that & more.
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Pete said 3:11PM on 4-23-2009
The link is www dot heavens-above dot com...
thirdprophet said 3:44PM on 4-23-2009
An app like this would be very useful for people who deal with deployed military satellite communications - being able to hit the birds in the sky through GPS positional locating for INMARSAT, Iridium, and other stuff like that.
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ken said 5:16PM on 4-23-2009
Sadly, Inmarsat satellites don't seem to be tracked in this version. I've put in a support request to ask if they can add them... but that was a bit of a letdown for me.
ken said 5:51PM on 4-23-2009
Need to give them some credit - they already replied with directions on how to add another data feed which has the Inmarsat (and about 380 other) birds to track. Excellent support!
thirdprophet said 5:53PM on 4-23-2009
Hmm... I might look into this, then. If I can track for INMARSAT and BGAN, that makes my job a hell of a lot easier.
L3 said 6:20PM on 4-23-2009
Yeah, $10.
It seems really cool, but it also seems a little like math homework.
$1.99 and I'll sign up.
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shradical said 11:05AM on 4-24-2009
If it has DSCS, WGS and all the civilian Ku-Band satellites I use at work, then I'd be down for $10.
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