Next Rise Time

Element Manager can assemble a table of rise times for ALL ACTIVE satellites on your Main Screen Display. If you wish to calculate for a subset of that group use the Selection process to zero in on those satellites you are interested in from the Main Screen prior to running this routine.

From the Main screen Menu select "View/Next Rise Time (all sats)"

The screen above appears but it is empty.

Enter the number of hours you wish to search for rise times. The window always starts NOW and moves forward the number of hours you specify. You can type in any number of hours or click the drop down arrow and select from several presets.

If you are only interested in satellites in LEO (arbitrarily set at an orbital period of 225 minutes or less) leave the checkmark next to that entry. If you want to check for rise times of higher sats, uncheck it.

Satellites in orbits similar to geosync, that's primarily geosyncs and wobbling geosyncs, will be excluded.

Click Start. A progress bar shows how the process is progressing. If you are working with a really big file it may take some time to generate this report. If you become frustrated waiting, there's a cancel button on the progress bar which will abort the process.

All rises for each satellite during the search window are listed. The list is sorted by time, the first to rise is the first in the list.

By clicking on the Graphic tab, you can also display the rise times in this graph format.

If you point to a peak and click it, the rise info for that satellite is shown above the graph.

The green cross hairs point to the peak of the satellite for which data is being displayed in text form above the graph.

If numerous peaks occur at the same time, the one closest to where you mouse clicked will be displayed above. If two peaks reside beside each other, click slightly to the left of the left most peak and you'll single out that satellite, click slightly to the right of the right most peak you'll get that one. However, you do have to be within a certain radius of a peak before you click will be recognized. I've set it to 2% of the width and 10% of the height of the graph. Click outside this envelop and a warning appears in the data area at the top of the form.

After you have clicked inside the graph area the cursor keys also become active. You can press the up or right cursor keys to move to the next satellite on the graph to rise and if you press the down or left cursor keys the display moves to the previous satellite to rise.

The red number above the graph is the current time as set on you system. It and the red line in the graph scroll to the right and update once a minute.

The times below the graph are the start time of the window on the left and the end time of the window on the right. Elapsed minutes for the window appear directly below the graph.

The usual provisos apply here as in other areas of the program.

If you are trying to get a rise time on a satellite with an orbital period of 225 minutes or greater, accuracy will suffer as the LEO orbital propagation model is the only one being used (SGP). The fresher the element set for those satellites, the better the prediction.

LEO's will benefit from fresh elements too, but it is not as critical.