Light reflection/seeing satellites from earth

[Spero]

Hello fellow orbiters,
Just signed up for this forum so it's my first post. My question here relates to seeing objects in space, from earth. I'm wondering if there is any way, a setting, or an addon, that would make it possible to see mir, the iss, or any other satellite orbiting earth, from the ground just as I would see them if I go outside and look at the sky.

I'd like to be able to see a ball of light crossing the sky as a station is going over head, and watch it get brighter as I build my stations larger. Maybe they are visible, but any time I have ever been on the ground looking up while something was passing over, I never saw anything. Maybe I just looked in the wrong spot . Anyways any help in this area would be appreciated, thanks in advance for any help!

 

[ryan]

Well that could work, but why would you want to see them anyways, but i think its a good idea, but i dont really know who would do it. We are all kind of busy with our own add-ons, but i could help you out if you were going to do it yourself.

 

[simonpro]

Seeing Mir would be hard, it crashed into the ocean about 8 years ago

But yes, it is possible to set orbiter up so that, say, the international space station will be in it's true position. You just need to get hold of the orbital elements (space-track has them if you can persuade them to give you a login) and then convert them into orbiter position and velocity vectors, there are some tools on orbithangar to help with this.

Not quite sure why you would want to do this though, it is much easier to use something like "heavens above" to find out what is passing over your house in any given day.

 

[ryan]

No guys i think he means that MIR on orbiter will be visible, because just today i went out and docked with it with Endeavour.

But also i forgot to add, is it even possiple to see satilites or space stations that clearly like in real life there just bright blobs.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Simonpro: He's not asking to get the ISS in it's real position(although I'm sure he'd want that too). If you put something in its real position that doesn't mean you'll see it. Orbiter doesn't reflect light off of vessels for you to see the bright blob you'd usually see from Earth. He wants light reflections to Earth to be possible.

Ryan: Obviously he means Orbiter. Do you think that Simonpro would have any problem figuring that out on his own? And I have no idea what you mean with your second post. A little more English could help.

 

[simonpro]

Yeah, I figured he was talking about Orbiter.
But this line:

Maybe they are visible, but any time I have ever been on the ground looking up while something was passing over, I never saw anything.

Got me thinking that he is also trying to view spacecraft in real life. So I thought I would cover all the bases, just to be on the safe side

 

[RAF92_Moser]

I would try this out. I haven't used it but it may useful to you.

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2989"]TelescopeMFD_0.1[/ame]

 

[tomek]

I think the guy just wants to be able to see vessels from distance of few hundred kilometers, reflections or not. In Orbiter, that's a problem because once vessel is far enough, it just isn't rendered.

There is a parameter in vessels' config files (those in orbiter060929_base\Config\Vessels) that's responsible for that. It's called "Size", but it doesn't actually affect apparent size of the vessel (that is, it doesn't scale the mesh). Instead, it's used to decide whether the vessel is still close enough to care to render it. Basically if spacecraft would be replaced with a sphere with such radius, and that sphere was taking up less than a pixel on the screen, then Orbiter just doesn't render the vessel. Or maybe it's diameter, I don't remember.

The point is, if you increase that parameter, the vessel will keep being rendered from further distance. But the problem is that there's no point, because from that distance the mesh itself will actually occupy less than a pixel, so you won't see it anyways. Now, for a vessel that's too small to take up at least a pixel, but still isn't too far away, Orbiter doesn't just stop rendering the vessel altogether, but instead draws a small dot on its place. So manipulating the Size parameter might cause Orbiter to draw that dot exactly when the vessel is about 400km away (LEO altitude). But I'm not sure whether Orbiter actually cares about the Size parameter for purposes of drawing that dot.

 

[ryan]

Hey guys, could these be used as navagation tools, like use another spacecraft or station as a reference, i know my nav stars and having visible things in the sky other then stars and planets will be nice.

 

[razgriz31m]

i do want to re-enter mir on my orbiter!!!