Stellarium coloured lines

[Rapallokid]

Please can someone tell me why NOAA and ENVISAT satellites are predicted by coloured lines in Stellarium when other satellites are just shown as white icons with no lines preceeding them? What is the significance?

Many thanks.

Rapallokid.

[Nova]

I have always assumed that the better known sats have there paths shown but have never asked the question. could it also be related to how visble the sats are? ie the easy to spot ones have there paths shown

[JB80]

Actually I'd just like to switch it off, I was fiddling with some settings and they appeared. No idea what it was I changed however.

[Astro Imp]

Actually I'd just like to switch it off, I was fiddling with some settings and they appeared. No idea what it was I changed however.

To toggle between on/off, hover over the bottom of the Stellarium window and a group of options appear. The one you want is the sixth from left. Looks like two thick lines with a thicker shorter line at right angles across the middle.

HTH.

[JB80]

Thanks for that

It's been bugging me.

[cosmological]

If you want to turn individual lines orbit lines off but keep the satellites on, do a file search for 'satellites.json', open it and do a word search for the satellite in question, for example, if you search for 'envisat' you might see something like this

"ENVISAT":

{

"comms": [],

"groups": ["scientific"],

"hintColor": [0, 1, 0],

"lastUpdated": 2001-05-25T12:00:00,

"orbitVisible": true,

"tle1": "1 27386U 02009A 11305.17704158 -.00000736 00000-0 -23137-3 0 6826",

"tle2": "2 27386 98.4919 11.7150 0000893 105.4530 254.6781 14.37481658505797",

"visible": true

},

Change 'true' to 'false' and save.

[Rapallokid]

Many thanks for all the replys, i am officially enlightened.

[assasincz]

Following up on the Stellarium issue, I ahve always wondered, is there any sort of trick or gadget in it for measuring angular distance from one set point to the other? I mean, choose a star, then another star, and voilá, it tells me how far is one from another. Is there something like it? Thanks for the replies, albeit it is a silly question.

[cosmological]

You mean like this?

Then the answer is yes

[assasincz]

I meant to ask on how to do this stuff but I have already figured it out, thanks a lot for initiative, anyway