Satelite_Tracker

I made a desktop app that shows which satellites fly over any place on Earth in the next 48 hours and whether you can actually see them. You click a spot on the world map, or search for a place, and you get a list of passes with times, direction, brightness and the cloud forecast.

The hardest part was figuring out when a satellite is really visible. It has to be dark where you are, but the satellite still needs sunlight on it, so I had to check the sun’s position and Earth’s shadow for every pass. Estimating how bright each pass will be also took me a while. Getting the app packaged for Windows, Mac and Linux was harder than I expected too.

I’m proud that the app doesn’t just say “not visible” but tells you why, like too cloudy or the satellite is in Earth’s shadow. I also like the 3D globe view.

To test it: download the file for your system from the releases page, unzip it and start it. Windows and macOS will warn you because the app isn’t signed. The README explains how to open it anyway. The first click on the map takes a few seconds because the app downloads orbit data first.