Printer-friendly version

IAU Minor Planet Center

Minor Planet Center

The Distant Artificial Satellites Observation Page

This page (formerly titled the Earth-Orbiting Space Junk Tracker Page) allows observers to get ephemerides for man-made objects in orbit around the earth (or a dynamical point associated with the earth) that have been (or could be) confused with natural objects.

Astrometry of these objects should be reported to both mpc@cfa.harvard.edu and pluto@gwi.net, in the normal format, with the designation beginning in column 1 and extending no further than column 12 (names that are longer than twelve characters should be truncated). Observations will be published in the new Distant Artificial Satellites Observation circular (also via http).

Magnitude predictions cannot be added at this time for most of the objects listed here: predictions will be added once we receive astrometry with attached photometry.

Use the FeedBack form to make comments or report problems with this service.

Select object(s) from the list of available objects:
IMP8 WIND
ACE Geotail
WMAP 1969-046F; Vela 5A/5B booster
1983-020A 1983-020D
EPOXI CXO (Chandra)
Herschel Planck
9O0DC57 9U01FF6
Rosetta 9V9BAC8
9W13082

Ephemeris options:

Start date (YYYY MM DD.ddddd format, default is now)

Make start date a multiple of the ephemeris interval

For daily ephemerides, enter desired offset from 0h UT: hours

Number of dates to output

Ephemeris interval: 1 day 12 hours 6 hours 2 hours 1 hour 30 mins 10 mins 1 min

Display positions in: truncated sexagesimal or full sexagesimal or decimal units

Display motions as: "/sec, "/min, "/hr or °/day.

Total motion and direction Separate R.A. and Decl. coordinate motions Separate R.A. and Decl. sky motions

Suppress output if sun above local horizon

Suppress output if object below local horizon

Full output Brief output

Select your viewing point:

Geocentric Observatory code

Longitude ° E, latitude °, altitude m.

Longitudes and latitudes should be entered in decimal degrees.

Note: When local circumstances are displayed, the azimuths are reckoned westwards from the south meridian.

Sources of Data

Ephemeris data used in this service may be obtained from:
internal MPC calculations,
the Satellite Situation Center,
JPL's Horizons
Bill Gray of Project Pluto
and Dale Fink (WMAP Operations).

This service is made possible by the
Tamkin Foundation Computer Network
and by
Process Software Corporation's Purveyor webserver.

Valid HTML 4.01!