1° Forum di Astronomia Amatoriale Italiano

You can find satellite tracking in CdC by clicking on Calendar then Artificial Satellites tab. The program comes with sample TLE files (which are probably out
of date for accurate tracking). To download the latest data you must register with www.space-track.org/perl/login.pl There is a Download button which will do the download automatically. TLE files are text data files which describe the orbits of
satellites in 2 lines (Two Line Element), usually there is a description line preceding the two lines which will give you the name of the object and its status. There are sometimes a couple of objects with the same name which
usually indicates that they are pieces of the same launch (engines, boosters,casings, payload, etc). There are supplementay programs that run within CdC to calculate the current and predicted position and appearance of the satellites,as the brightness can vary according to the altitude, sun position, attitude of the object.