Low NOAA 17 Pass

December 7, 2008 | Amateur Radio, Amateur Satellite | By: Mark VandeWettering

I woke up this morning, and wanted to relax a bit before the day’s exciting activities (more on this later), so I noted that NOAA17 was coming up. I got out after the pass (which had a maximum elevation of under 15 degrees) was under way, but the audio sounded pretty clear, so I recorded the audio and got the following picture:

Because it was so short, I wasn’t 100% sure what I was staring at. The water at the lower right was (I suspected) the Gulf of Mexico, but I wasn’t 100% sure. So I got out my mapping software and plotted the path of NOAA17 along the ground. Sure enough, that seems plausible.

I should figure out how to plot the visible region for NOAA passes, so I can do this more routinely. In fact, I could probably merge this with my satellite prediction code to give the ground tracks of satellites more routinely. More stuff for the future!