Sitrec 1.14.0 Feature roundup

[Mick West]

My contract to improve Sitrec expired in February, so I've been working on it intermittently since then, focusing on things useful to new cases, and things that I find useful. I didn't do much in Feb-April, but things have picked up recently. Here's a look at the new features over the last few months:

• AB Measures (Press A at the start and B at the end, while pointing in the main view)
• Celestial Vectors - Arrows that point at the Sun, moon, venus, and other planets. In the Show/Hide menu
• Satellites have lots of improvements, and a new menu
  • Now fetches all Low Earth Orbit satellites, not just Starlink
  • Can filter by Starlink, Brightest, ISS, Others, or a custom list
  • You can select a satellite as a camera track (or a target track)
  • Satellite files are compressed so the larger full files take less space than the uncompressed Starlink files
• You can now use a static image instead of a video
• Added "Custom Az/El" to the angles source, allowing you to drop in a CSV of Frame, Az or Time, Az (for the ME23/34 videos from AARO)
• Added Azimuth graph
• Added MQ9 style overlay view (Show/Hide->Views->MQ9UI) to show the "N" compass.
• Lots of optimizations, especially in sitches where there are lots of tracks (over 50). Now more real-time during time adjustments
• Preset views layouts on keys 1-5
• Added "Lookup" to camera position, allowing you to type in a location (e.g. "Sacramento", and it will move the look camera to that location
• Added "Go To" button under that to move the main camera to that location

The full list of changes, optimizations, and bug fixes can be found here:
https://github.com/MickWest/sitrec/compare/1.9.1...1.14.0

 

[Mick West]

And I just remembered @Giddierone asked me, about 18 months ago, if I could make the camera look at a satellite passing overhead, so I added that as well. You ahve to set the "Target Track" to "Satellite", and then set "Camera Heading" to "To Target", and select the satellite in "Satellite To Track" (defaults to ISS)

 

[Giddierone]

make the camera look at a satellite passing overhead

Ah, this was related to the UFO sightings in Southern Africa in the days before Ariel School. The Kettering Group were tracking the rocket body that came down in a spectacular light show, and recorded pages and pages of TLE (two-line element) data. I was wondering if Sitrec might help line up the various eyewitness reports with the rocket body flying over (flaring/glinting) before it finally broke up.

For example Geoffrey Perry reported seeing it from his house in Bude in the UK.

"My wife and I have been actually watching it go over, flashing very rapidly and very, very bright – almost as bright as Venus – and it was coming towards the end of its life

Source: https://gideonreid.co.uk/russian-rocket-over-africa/

 

[JMartJr]

Is there some sort of "How To Use Sitrec" tutorial or document, which is more or less up to date, all in one place, and starts from "So, you just now learned that Sitrec exists and know nothing about it at all..."?

 

[Mick West]

Is there some sort of "How To Use Sitrec" tutorial or document, which is more or less up to date, all in one place, and starts from "So, you just now learned that Sitrec exists and know nothing about it at all..."?

There are links in the Help menu to various readme files hosted on Github. Not entirely up to date. Feel free to ask for more specifics and I can add them (or make a video)

 

[JMartJr]

Thank you. I'll take a swing at it and see how it goes...

 

[Giddierone]

Perhaps we can get some kind of helpful virtual assistant?...

"Hi there! It look like you're trying to debunk some blurry lights in the sky, I can help with that!"

 

[Calter]

Now fetches all Low Earth Orbit satellites, not just Starlink

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread to ask this, but what counts as LEO satellites?

I was trying to recreate a sighting that had NOSS 3-4 r as one of the culprits, and I'm pretty sure that's in LEO, but it doesn't show up. The problem could be that it's a rocket body rather than a proper satellite.

 

[Mick West]

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread to ask this, but what counts as LEO satellites?

MEAN_MOTION > 11.25
ECCENTRICITY < 0.25
OBJECT_TYPE payload

I was trying to recreate a sighting that had NOSS 3-4 r as one of the culprits, and I'm pretty sure that's in LEO, but it doesn't show up. The problem could be that it's a rocket body rather than a proper satellite.

So yeah, it's probably the last one ("payload") that's removing it. I was trying not to have every tiny bit of space junk there. Removing the "payload" designator nearly doubles the size of the file.

Hmm, actually that doesn't fix it. I have to remove the other two as well. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and download all the satellites.

 

[Mick West]

Hmm, actually that doesn't fix it. I have to remove the other two as well. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and download all the satellites.

Now done. There were a number of issues; now there are more satellites, but I can't display all the labels at once, so I had to put some limits on that.

NOSS 3-4 r is in there, but space-track calls it ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B, a name it shares with other satellites, which was causing it not to show up at all. To use it as a target or in the list filter, you need to use its NORAD number 31702

Don't know the location, but I suspect it won't line up perfectly with the Stellarium image, as Stellarium web does not load historical TLEs.

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?cu...t-2.amazonaws.com/1/Calter/20250601_203532.js

 

[Calter]

Don't know the location, but I suspect it won't line up perfectly with the Stellarium image, as Stellarium web does not load historical TLEs.

Thanks! It did change the position, and the new position allowed me to find a better match than what I was getting with Stellarium