Using pyephem to calculate when a satellite crosses longitude

There are so many possible circumstances that users may ask about when a satellite crosses a certain longitude; when it reaches a certain latitude; when it reaches a certain height or falls to the lowest height; when its speed is great or less - PyEphem does not try to provide built-in functions for all of them. Instead, it provides a function newton()that allows you to find the zero intersection of any comparison that you want to make between the satellite attribute and the predefined value of that attribute that you want to find.

Please note that the SciPy Python library contains some very thorough search functions, which are much more complicated than the PyEphem function newton()if you are dealing with a particularly poorly executed function:

http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/optimize.html

, - , ISS - , . - , , , , , , , . , , , znorm , . , script !

import ephem

line0 = 'ISS (ZARYA)             '
line1 = '1 25544U 98067A   13110.27262069  .00008419  00000-0  14271-3 0  6447'
line2 = '2 25544  51.6474  35.7007 0010356 160.4171 304.1803 15.52381363825715'

sat = ephem.readtle(line0, line1, line2)
target_long = ephem.degrees('-83.8889')

def longitude_difference(t):
    '''Return how far the satellite is from the target longitude.

    Note carefully that this function does not simply return the
    difference of the two longitudes, since that would produce a
    terrible jagged discontinuity from 2pi to 0 when the satellite
    crosses from -180 to 180 degrees longitude, which could happen to be
    a point close to the target longitude.  So after computing the
    difference in the two angles we run degrees.znorm on it, so that the
    result is smooth around the point of zero difference, and the
    discontinuity sits as far away from the target position as possible.

    '''
    sat.compute(t)
    return ephem.degrees(sat.sublong - target_long).znorm

t = ephem.date('2013/4/20')

# How did I know to make jumps by minute here?  I experimented: a
# `print` statement in the loop showing the difference showed huge jumps
# when looping by a day or hour at a time, but minute-by-minute results
# were small enough steps to bring the satellite gradually closer to the
# target longitude at a rate slow enough that we could stop near it.
#
# The direction that the ISS travels makes the longitude difference
# increase with time; `print` statements at one-minute increments show a
# series like this:
#
# -25:16:40.9
# -19:47:17.3
# -14:03:34.0
# -8:09:21.0
# -2:09:27.0
# 3:50:44.9
# 9:45:50.0
# 15:30:54.7
#
# So the first `while` loop detects if we are in the rising, positive
# region of this negative-positive pattern and skips the positive
# region, since if the difference is positive then the ISS has already
# passed the target longitude and is on its way around the rest of
# the planet.

d = longitude_difference(t)

while d > 0:
    t += ephem.minute
    sat.compute(t)
    d = longitude_difference(t)

# We now know that we are on the negative-valued portion of the cycle,
# and that the ISS is closing in on our longitude.  So we keep going
# only as long as the difference is negative, since once it jumps to
# positive the ISS has passed the target longitude, as in the sample
# data series above when the difference goes from -2:09:27.0 to
# 3:50:44.9.

while d < 0:
    t += ephem.minute
    sat.compute(t)
    d = longitude_difference(t)

# We are now sitting at a point in time when the ISS has just passed the
# target longitude.  The znorm of the longitude difference ought to be a
# gently sloping zero-crossing curve in this region, so it should be
# safe to set Newton method to work on it!

tn = ephem.newton(longitude_difference, t - ephem.minute, t)

# This should be the answer!  So we print it, and also double-check
# ourselves by printing the longitude to see how closely it matches.

print 'When did ISS cross this longitude?', target_long
print 'At this specific date and time:', ephem.date(tn)

sat.compute(tn)

print 'To double-check, at that time, sublong =', sat.sublong

, script, , ( ), :

When did ISS cross this longitude? -83:53:20.0
At this specific date and time: 2013/4/20 00:18:21
To double-check, at that time, sublong = -83:53:20.1