Last night, March 11, about 9PM Pacific, I saw a satellite going from east to west. I am used to seeing them go west to east and north to south. I did some research and found these are called "retrograde orbits" but that is about all I could find. And that is was possibly Israeli. There was one web site that was suggested to find out what satellite it was but that was no help at all. Something heavens? Has anyone else seen any "retrograde orbit" satellites and what is a good site to find out what flew over?

Heavens Above is a good app for that. And I think Star Walk has satellites too in the premium version.

TWA772LR wrote:

Heavens Above is a good app for that. And I think Star Walk has satellites too in the premium version.

Heavens Above is an orbital tracking web site to begin with.
https://www.heavens-above.com/

App is secondary.

WIederling wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

Heavens Above is a good app for that. And I think Star Walk has satellites too in the premium version.

Heavens Above is an orbital tracking web site to begin with.
https://www.heavens-above.com/

App is secondary.

Heavens Above was the site I was directed to but I did not see anything in a retrograde orbit near me last night. So, I am guessing it was Israeli with the theory being they launch their rockets over the Mediterranean, or some kind of mapping satellite as they need the most daylight possible. I thought it was interesting to see it moving opposite how I am used to seeing them.

seb146 wrote:

WIederling wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

Heavens Above is a good app for that. And I think Star Walk has satellites too in the premium version.

Heavens Above is an orbital tracking web site to begin with.
https://www.heavens-above.com/

App is secondary.

Heavens Above was the site I was directed to but I did not see anything in a retrograde orbit near me last night. So, I am guessing it was Israeli with the theory being they launch their rockets over the Mediterranean, or some kind of mapping satellite as they need the most daylight possible. I thought it was interesting to see it moving opposite how I am used to seeing them.

I use Heavens Above on almost a daily basis...I hope you get to sort this one out. I just found another go-to site (Cal Sky) shut down last year...total bummer there. Yet another good one (just checked - it is still online) is: https://www.n2yo.com/ Great real time tracking on screen.

seb146 wrote:

WIederling wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

Heavens Above is a good app for that. And I think Star Walk has satellites too in the premium version.

Heavens Above is an orbital tracking web site to begin with.
https://www.heavens-above.com/

App is secondary.

Heavens Above was the site I was directed to but I did not see anything in a retrograde orbit near me last night. So, I am guessing it was Israeli with the theory being they launch their rockets over the Mediterranean, or some kind of mapping satellite as they need the most daylight possible. I thought it was interesting to see it moving opposite how I am used to seeing them.

Some around in retrograde orbits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificia ... t#Examples

Delta V cost is high. You lose the earth surface speed (’460m/s) advantage twice.

For Israel and other users the advantage may be in having less time between overflights for an orbit high enough to not degrade inside the use period.

https://www.n2yo.com/ is a good site.

WIederling wrote:

seb146 wrote:

WIederling wrote:

Heavens Above is an orbital tracking web site to begin with.
https://www.heavens-above.com/

App is secondary.

Heavens Above was the site I was directed to but I did not see anything in a retrograde orbit near me last night. So, I am guessing it was Israeli with the theory being they launch their rockets over the Mediterranean, or some kind of mapping satellite as they need the most daylight possible. I thought it was interesting to see it moving opposite how I am used to seeing them.

Some around in retrograde orbits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificia ... t#Examples

Delta V cost is high. You lose the earth surface speed (’460m/s) advantage twice.

For Israel and other users the advantage may be in having less time between overflights for an orbit high enough to not degrade inside the use period.

For Israel, there is only one reason. They just try to avoid, that any part, burnt out rocket stage or after failure, the rocket + satellite (even destroyed) ends up on hostile land (so everyone around) and can/will be used for own development of a rocket or to identify the capability of their spy satellite, so against them. When they shoot the rocket in direction of the Mediterranean sea, everything will end up in 4.000 m deep sea.