• Day Light
• Night Time

• Satellite Paths

• U.S. Naval Observatory
• Current GPS Constellation
• National Air and Space Museum
• U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center

GPS experiment

1. Question

 
What directions do the GPS satellites move as observed on the GPS "satellite" view on the Garmin Vista GPS unit?
 
2. Setup
• Garmin Vista Handheld GPS unit
• Canon A60 digital camera
• PC running Paint to view the pictures and create the track drawings.
• Pictures were taken approximately every half hour (with a gap between 15:00 hrs and 19:00 hrs for shopping) for a period of twelve hours and handholding the camera.
3. Experiment
• Take pictures of the Garmin GPS unit as it is receiving data from the GPS satellites and displaying the Satellite view.
• The pictures were cropped to show just the screen and then compared to compile the track drawing. The track drawing files are the n_???_.gif files
4. Results
• The drawing files show the directions of the satellites as observed from this location on the planet Earth. Due to the position of Reno Nevada, the drawings have some interesting tracks. See n_01_.gif as an example.
• The drawing files built from the pictures from the Garmin show some of the same satellites in the day and night. See n_25_.gif

This little experiment has caused me to excercise my brain quite a bit which I understand is a good thing.

Do you have some comments and questions? If so, please email me at gpsfun@aol.com