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An interesting challenge

A project log for ISS Lamp - NTP clock - Artpiece

My "standalone" take on the ISS lamp lights up when the spacestation is overhead. It doubles as a NTP controlled clock.. with a VFD display.

robottoRobotto 08/14/2014 at 10:470 Comments

I differentiate between regular and visible passes of the space station (setting showAll=f or =t in the call to heavens-above.com from the python script)

The list of regular passes contains ALL of the passes, the list of visible passes contains a 'subset' of these that are visible.

Regular passes always start and end at 10degrees elevation because visibility is neglected, but visible passes sometimes start higher in the sky and therefore later than the corresponding 'regular' pass

I had fun discovering this, and writing the bit of code that discerns which of the regular passes to disregard, since they are also in the list of visible passes albeit some of the visible passes are delayed..

Keeping in mind that the spacestation has a ~90 minute orbital period i can quite easily determine that two pass-entries within a few minutes of each other must represent the same actual orbital flyby, and thus I can disregard the 'regular' pass, since the visible ones are way more fun :)

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