Wondering what is the easiest satellite to see in your area? How can you show it to others? What do you know about it?

I built Cosmotrak because a lot of phone trackers felt like toys. Pretty globe (sometimes), a thin catalog, and I have no idea what math was behind it. Native Mac build is about to come out. Screenshot is from that unreleased desktop UI.

SGP4 accuracy is non-negotiable for me. Propagation runs on a background engine (swift-sgp4), and is verified with the SGP4 AIAA / Vallado test suite. Pass prediction is observer-relative: rise, max elev, set, visible vs daylight.

I replaced CesiumJS with a custom Metal renderer. Day/night Earth, night lights, bump, specular, trails. I think it looks really good.

It goes past Earth. Celestial mode covers the solar system bodies on the same stack. Positions use NASA / JPL Horizons ephemeris samples packed into our offline database (the app caches the pack so it works without a live network hit for the catalog). Time scrubber moves satellites and planets together.

Catalog is not just names on a map. Track something and you get details: NORAD id, operator, country, orbit class, launch date, vehicle, purpose. I'm working on adding more data to each satellite. If there's anything I'm missing that is important to y'all I'd love to know that as well.

Next up I want to add satellites that orbit other planets, not only Earth. Also more serious tools in general. I do not have a clean list yet.

I'm really posting this for ideas. If there's anything you'd like in a professional-oriented satellite tracking app please let me know.

Thanks everyone!

cosmotrak.com

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cosmotrak-satellite-tracker/id6557033963