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[[image]] Tools for Targeting

The primary tools for targeting are the Slider Map and the SMOC Map web page. The Slider Map provides a good first look at the ground track of the orbit of your choice. It is excellent for selecting tentative targets; however, it is not accurate enough to determine the exact latitude and longitude of your targets, and cannot tell you the exact MET at which the space shuttle will pass over the target. Once you have a tentative target selected, you will probably want to examine that part of the world in more detail, using an atlas or other reference book; then you will use the SMOC Map web page to find the precise latitude and longitude of your target, and to calculate the MET of the photo.

Slider Map
What is the Slider Map, and why do you need it? The Slider Map is a large world map, and a sheet of plastic with an orbit ground track printed on it. You can slide the plastic overlay to any position on the map; if you know the descending node of the shuttle orbit, you can position the overlay so that its descending node is at that longitude. The overlay then shows the ground track of that particular orbit. You can use the slider map to find the ground track of any orbit on STS-81.

Example
The descending node of orbit 15 on STS-76 was 100° E. To show the ground track of orbit 15, you would position the overlay so that the descending node on the printed orbit was at longitude 100° E at the equator.

The KidSat camera will only be able to photograph parts of the Earth along the ground track in daylight. The Slider Map allows you to see, at a glance, what you can take pictures of on a particular orbit.

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