GE-1 Azimuth/Elevation computer

Including solar alignment for current day
Greetings. Given the require parameters, this page will attempt to compute the azimuth and elevation to the GE-1 geostationary satellite. Additionally, it will try to provide a "solar alignment" time -- that is, a time when the Sun should be lined up behind the satellite. The image below illustrates the concept:
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GE-1 Solar alignment

The plan: It's easier to point a dish at the Sun than to point it at some arbitrary spot in the sky. With good weather, a good watch, and knowledge of the "solar alignment" time, you may be able to align your dish's azimuth without a compass. (You might still need a protractor for your elevation, however.)

If you don't know your latitude or longitude, visit the US Census bureau's Tigermap service.

I've loaded up the form with some values (my lat/long/altitude), so just click "submit" to see a sample run.

North Latitude (degrees)
West Longitude (degrees)
Altitude (meters)
Year
Month
Day

Please Note

The times reported by this application are UTC, also called GMT. You will need to adjust them for your own time zone. For instance, to correct for Pacific Standard Time, subtract 8 hours from the UTC time.

This is a beta application -- the information returned could be completely wrong! Please let me know if you discover something goofy -- especially if you put in "real" values, from which the application reports "Unable to determine solar alignment (sorry)". Thanks.

Credits

Robert W. Berger, N3EMO, for the n3emo orbit library
Elwood Charles Downey for xephem, which I used to make the skymapper graphics.

A list of Sky mapping software (including the orbit library) can be found at http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/sat/vsohp/orbsoft.html .

<scott@sonic.net>
"Range...37707.2 kilometers"
"Fire, Mr. Sulu!"
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GE-1 footprint