Satfinder Portable v1.2.1 - locate satellites in the sky

Posted Jan 18, 2008 at 4:27AM by QJ Staff Listed in: Homebrew Applications Tags: International Space Station, Pedro J
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Satfinder Portable v1.2.1 - locate in the sky hundreds of satellites - Image 1 Satfinder Portable v1.2.1 - locate in the sky hundreds of satellites - Image 2 


Homebrew developer Pedro J has just released a new PlayStation Portable application called Satfinder Portable. The program is currently in version 1.2.1 and is compatible with both the PSP FAT and PSP Slim & Lite.

Basically, Satfinder Portable is a tool to locate in the sky hundreds of satellites that can be seen with the naked eye making it a nice follow-up to the International Space Station or ISS.

The program's features include:
  • To determine the current position of artificial satellites and if they can be seen by the observer.
  • To determine the current position of the stars, the sun and moon in the sky. We can use them for finding the satellites in the sky.
  • To determine the position of constellations.
  • To determine when will be the next times you will be able to see the International Space Station (ISS) in your hometown, drawing the path the ISS will follow in the sky.
  • To determine which satellites are visible in the next half an hour.
  • To determine the precise moment when the Sun and Moon raise and set.
  • To determine when the moon phases will happen: 1st quarter, full, 3rd quarter and new.
  • To determine the night starts and ends..
  • To have a world map with all satellites drawn at their current position, showing up for each one if it is eclipsed or not by the Earth, and the path the ISS will follow during the next hour.
  • To listen to an voice assistant that notify us important events, letting us not to keep seeing the PSP screen all the time. These are this events:
    • The dusk and dawn, to know from when we can start looking for satellites and when not.
    • The emergence of a new satellite above 0, 30, 60 and 80 degrees of elevation when there is no one with higher elevation. It is useful for long waiting times in the absence of satellites, which we can look away from the screen and wait while we look at the sky.
    • The appearance and disappearance of the ISS, in addition to the time when it reaches its maximum elevation.
    • In each notification also is said in what direction we should look: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW and UP are the possible directions.
    • Sunrises and sunset. Moonrises and moonsets. There are two notifications, the first one few minutes before and the second one just when it will happen.
  • It has an installer for the PC that help us to easily install the application on our PSP, taking into account the type of firmware installed, searching the corresponding directory. It is called Satfinder Updater.
  • Change the SatFinder settings:
    • The possibility of changing the location of the observer using the installer (permanent change), or directly using the options menu in the PSP (temporary change).
    • Ability to switch between day and night vision.
    • Possibility of configuring the colors for night vision and for the daytime.
    • Possibility of enabling and disabling the elements to represent in the sky (Sun and Moon, stars, satellites, constellations).
    • Possibility of configuring the number of stars to be shown changing the magnitude limit.
    • Possibility of using automatic magnitude limit adjustments.
Download: Satfinder Portable v1.2.1

Via Satfinder Portable

 
 
 

Comments [refresh]

by Lucky_Bastard - 2008-01-18 01:09
» Seen it without this

i know the sched of this satellites, it's a way back in elementary school days until now, it's still there. 3-6 satellites @ 6:30-7pm HK location near the big deeper.

by virx216 - 2008-01-18 01:19
» nifty

I got it to work under the 1.5 kernel but not 3.80m33

by Unicorn - 2008-01-18 01:36
» Hello Ryan A.

Ive been talking with Pedro J. He would like you to change the "via link" to http://perso.gratisweb.com/pedroj.fernandez/ exactly.



The reason is that he has a counter, and he wants to know how many visits are in his homepage.



Thanks in advance.

by Ryan A. - 2008-01-18 01:51
» thanks for the heads up!

ok, will do now.. :)

by bndtortrkill - 2008-01-18 03:05
» huh.?!?

wtf

by rollinroll - 2008-01-18 03:21
» Sounds cool!

Wow, this sounds cool! Gonna give it a try!

by Lucky_Bastard - 2008-01-18 03:45
» sHUT MY Mouth

This app is all i need. no more gps from SONY! Looking forward to your Updates! Great Work!

by anthony2059 - 2008-01-18 13:28
» help

i install it and everything but when it loads up and gets done pops up for a fraction of a second the goes to error: satfinder. lua:924:attempt to perform arithmetic on field ut C_offset (a nil value) and i typed all that in...oh ya i have 3.80 m33 - 4

by Lucky_Bastard - 2008-01-18 13:32
» Same error

I got the same error. try to re-install it.

by Binary - 2008-01-18 17:21
» wtf

is this some kind of joke? does this actually find sats by walking out the door?

by anthony2059 - 2008-01-19 06:44
» ...

i did it still doesnt work...

by Pedro J. - 2008-01-19 14:38
» It isn't a joke :-)

Hi all!,

I'm Pedro J. , the author of this homebrew. I don't know why it doesn't work with CF 3.80 M33-4. I only have tested it until 3.71 M33-4. It may be a problem with the luaplayer interpreter. I'll look for the problem.



This is a real application. It isn't a joke. You can find at sky the satellites, and see them with your own naked eyes. They look like planes without blinking position lights. The only thing you have to do is sincronize the PSP time with the exact time and update the TLE files, the files that have important data that let us to get the satellite position in the sky. Also you have to set your coordinates, tour timezone and altitude.



Enjoy it!



Pedro J.

by natcom - 2008-01-20 13:25
» Thanks

Hey Pedro im on 371m33-4 and i can't get this to install on

my psp when i run the exe file it cant find my psp drive

your program think is the D: DRIVE but my PSP is the J: drive

by wormburner55 - 2008-01-20 16:16
» Small issue

Hi Pedro,



I have installed Satfinder, and have found that the moon seems to be 12 hours out on the display (ie sun and moon showing during the day, and nothing at night). Is this a bug with the southern hemisphere setup or just config error on my part.



I also dont seem to be able to set DST, I set it on the PS, but it never sets it on the PSP.



By the way, I am located in Australia.

by Pedro J. - 2008-01-24 12:21
» You should read more.

At installation time, the applicartion advise you to check if you have a directorio called PSP in any of your HardDisks. The program may confuse it with the PSP. Try again and this time try to read all the text that appears on the screen.



Enjoy Satfinder!

by Pedro J. - 2008-01-24 12:32
» Australia! Amazing!

Hi,



nobady has told me how Satfinder works in the southern hemisphere, so congratulations !! You are the first one!



Well, may be you have noticed that the moon is inverted. It is normal, I'll try to solve it in the next version. It's easy. But the bug you are telling me is new for me. I have to study it.



For the Daylight Saving Time, you have to set it at installation time. You also may have to disable it in the PSP config if it doesn't work.



Bye, from Murcia (Spain) :-D

by Lucky_Bastard - 2008-01-25 14:55
» Accurate

ei pedro, nice job for making this great homebrew. on my above post it really does pickup the satellites at that point in time. now, i know their names hehe. kinda confusing on swapping east to west. im facing towards the north and my psp is on my chest do i need to swap it? also, i would suggest to add a little louder on the voice assistant it's too low. looking forward to ur next updates.

by Pedro J. - 2008-02-12 00:13
» CF 3.90 compatible

Hi,



Some people tell me that Satfinder doesn't work fine with CF 3.80 and 3.90.



I tried to run Satfinder in a CF 3.90 and it works!



The only thing you have to do is unistall the previous version of Satfinder from your PSP. Then, reinstall it being sure that the option "CF 3.60 or higher" is marked. (1.5 version doesn't work in CF 3.80 nor 3.90)



Tell me if all goes ok to you doing these steps.



Best regards!

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