Mars Odyssey accuracy (and newbie Q's :D )

[djellison]

Boy oh boy this is a stunning piece of work.

I'm trying to create a timeline of Beagle 2's first week or so on mars, Sunrise, Sunset, Earth Rise, Earth Set - and Mars Odyssey over-flights.

However - I'm not too sure if fantastic Mars Odyssey by Shrox is accurate or not (or if it's just me)

THe press releases say there's an overflight of the B2 landing site at 05:15 on 25th Dec '03.

B2's landing site is 269d 30m W 11d 36m N. I'm putting this in when I 'goto object' as 269.5, 11.5, and 0.1km altitude. Then 'selecting' Mars Odyssey and using C to centre the view to it, and shift-left click to zoom in and out.

I do indeed get an overflight that, if you take it from roughly 15 degrees above horizon, starts at 5:15 and finishes at 5:23. Then, however, Celestia shows me another one, 07:11-07:21, 09:10-09:19, 11:09-11:19, 13:07 -13:18, 15:05 - 15:15, 17:04 - 17:13, 19:02........ you get the picture.

I thought Mars Odyssey's orbit was such that any place on mars would get one daylight and one nightime pass per day - but the info I'm getting would seem to suggest a totally different type of orbit.

Am I perhaps doing something wrong? If the orbital data is wrong, is there a way to update it at all?

All and any help much appreciated.


Doug

[JackHiggins]

The mars odyssey (and MGS too i'd say) orbits are more than a year old at least, and so are probably way off at this stage... Celestia doesn't take into account atmospheric drag etc, which would obviously have an effect in the real world.

If you could get accurate orbital data, you'd have no problems, but unfortunately I have no idea where you could get it...

Maybe someone else can help out?!!

(Mars Odyssey is in a sun-synchronus orbit, as far as I know. Apparently it passes over the same place at 2pm local time every day...? )

[Guest]

The mars odyssey (and MGS too i'd say) orbits are more than a year old at least, and so are probably way off at this stage... Celestia doesn't take into account atmospheric drag etc, which would obviously have an effect in the real world.

If you could get accurate orbital data, you'd have no problems, but unfortunately I have no idea where you could get it...

Maybe someone else can help out?!!

(Mars Odyssey is in a sun-synchronus orbit, as far as I know. Apparently it passes over the same place at 2pm local time every day...? )

Therein is another question - is there a method to calculate 'local' time on mars using Celestia

Doug