Orbitscope

Orbitscope (Space)

Your Valar Scope can also run as Orbitscope — a desk window onto live space data. Instead of plotting aircraft, the round screen becomes a small mission console that cycles through a whole rack of glanceable readouts: where the ISS is right now and when it next passes over you, a T‑minus countdown to the next rocket launch, live space‑weather dials (solar wind, Kp, NOAA scales, X‑ray flares, aurora odds for your latitude), deep‑space boards (which NASA dish is talking to which probe, how far Voyager is), and a set of computed‑on‑device sky almanacs (a star map for your location, Moon phase, the next eclipse and meteor shower).

It's a separate firmware build for the same Valar Scopes hardware: flash the Orbitscope firmware and the device boots into the space monitor instead of the radar. Everything else you already know carries over — Wi‑Fi setup, the web config page, persistent storage, over‑the‑air updates, and ntfy alerts. The big round AMOLED is its natural home.

Where the data comes from. Orbitscope talks directly to free, public space APIs — there is no backend and no API key baked in. The live feeds are: the ISS position and orbit from wheretheiss.at; the next launches from RocketLaunch.Live; the Kp index, solar wind, NOAA storm scales, and GOES X‑ray flares from NOAA SWPC; which dish is talking to which probe from NASA's Deep Space Network; probe distances from JPL Horizons; near‑Earth close approaches from the JPL CAD API; and the crew roster from a public people‑in‑space mirror. Several screens need no feed at all — the star map, Moon phase, eclipse, meteor‑shower, cosmic‑clock, and next‑ISS‑pass screens are all computed on‑device from the NTP clock and your configured location (the ISS pass via an on‑board SGP4 propagator). It polls gently — one request in flight at a time, each feed on its own timer with exponential backoff — and keeps the last good reading, so a momentary network hiccup never blanks a screen. An optional Valar space‑feed backend can be set by URL in config, but it's empty by default.

🖥️ The screens

The monitor auto‑rotates through the screens below, pausing on whichever you swipe to. Swipe left / right to move between them. A screen whose feed hasn't landed yet is skipped until there's something to show, and each one degrades gracefully — before its data (or the NTP clock, or your location) is available it says so rather than showing nothing. A few screens with several items (deep‑space probes, DSN links, asteroids, crew, the cosmic clock's three faces) cycle their sub‑items every few seconds.

🛰️ Where things are

Screen	What it shows	Source
ISS tracker	A north‑polar azimuthal "globe" (North Pole at centre, equator a mid‑ring, South Pole the rim) with the International Space Station plotted live from its latitude and longitude. A label reads SUNLIT or ECLIPSED (in Earth's shadow); the bottom line gives altitude (km) and ground speed (km/h).	wheretheiss.at (~5 s)
Next ISS pass	The next time the ISS flies over your location: a big T‑minus countdown to it rising, the compass direction it rises from and its max elevation, whether it'll be a visible (sunlit) or daylight pass, and how long it stays above the horizon. Reads OVERHEAD NOW during a pass.	On‑device SGP4 from the live ISS TLE + your location
Launch T‑minus	The next rocket launch: provider (e.g. SpaceX) and vehicle (e.g. Falcon 9) up top, a big live T‑countdown in the middle, the mission and pad below. The countdown ticks locally from the NTP clock; only the launch instant comes from the feed. Shows NET date (no‑earlier‑than) when only a rough date is known.	RocketLaunch.Live (~20 min)
Humans in space	A big count of people currently in space with the caption "aboard right now", a tally by craft (e.g. ISS 7 · Tiangong 3), and a rotating line naming each crew member and their vehicle.	people‑in‑space mirror (~1 h)

☀️ Space weather

Screen	What it shows	Source
Solar wind	Live solar‑wind conditions driving the aurora: bulk speed (km/s), proton density (p/cm³), and a large Bz (nT) line colour‑coded by how far south the interplanetary field is tilted, with a plain‑language read ("strongly southward — aurora drive" → "northward (quiet)").	NOAA SWPC (DSCOVR, ~90 s)
Geomagnetic Kp	A 270° aurora gauge for the planetary Kp index (0–9), with the numeric value, a status word (QUIET → UNSETTLED → ACTIVE, or G1–G5 storm levels), and a small sparkline of the recent trend.	NOAA SWPC (~12 min)
Space‑weather scales	Three concentric dials — G (geomagnetic storm), S (solar radiation), R (radio blackout) — each 0–5, with a centre readout (e.g. G1 · S0 · R2) colour‑graded by severity. NOAA's three official space‑weather scales at a glance.	NOAA SWPC (~5 min)
Solar X‑ray flux	A 270° gauge over the A–B–C–M–X flare scale with the Sun's current X‑ray class (e.g. C1.9, M2.4) big in the centre, colour‑coded by class, and a 6‑hour peak footer.	NOAA SWPC (GOES, ~90 s)
Aurora forecast	A verdict for your location — OVERHEAD POSSIBLE / LOW ON N HORIZON / UNLIKELY TONIGHT — with the current Kp, the auroral‑oval edge latitude, and your own geomagnetic latitude on a 40–80° bar. Tells you whether tonight is worth stepping outside.	NOAA SWPC Kp + on‑device geomagnetic model (needs your location)

🌌 Deep space

Screen	What it shows	Source
Deep Space Network (DSN Now)	One live radio link at a time: which spacecraft a NASA dish is talking to right now (e.g. Voyager 1), the ground station and dish (e.g. Goldstone DSS14), whether it's up‑ or down‑link and at what data rate, and how many links are active. Cycles through the active links.	NASA DSN Now (~30 s)
Deep‑space probe distance	One famous probe at a time — Voyager 1 & 2, New Horizons, JWST, Parker Solar Probe — with its distance from Earth (AU or million km), speed and whether it's receding, and the one‑way light delay. Cycles through the probes.	JPL Horizons (round‑robin, ~2 min per probe)
Asteroid flyby	The next near‑Earth close approach: the object's designation, its miss distance in lunar distances (red inside 1 LD), an Earth–Moon–asteroid strip showing where it passes, an estimated size and approach speed, and a live countdown to closest approach. Cycles through upcoming approaches.	JPL CAD API (~6 h)

✨ Your night sky (computed on‑device, no feed)

Screen	What it shows	Source
Night‑sky star map	A full‑disc planisphere of the bright stars above your horizon right now — zenith at centre, horizon at the rim, N/S/E/W marked, brighter stars drawn larger — with a count and the brightest star up named.	On‑device: baked star catalogue + your location + clock (needs your location)
Moon phase	A drawn Moon disc with the illuminated portion rendered to scale (lit side tracking waxing/waning), the phase name, percent illuminated, and days until full.	On‑device from the clock
Next eclipse	The next solar or lunar eclipse: a disc icon, the eclipse type, a big T‑minus countdown to greatest eclipse, and the UTC date/time.	On‑device: baked 2026–2028 table + clock
Next meteor shower	A countdown to the next major meteor‑shower peak: the shower name (e.g. Perseids), a T‑minus timer, the expected rate (ZHR), and the Moon's illumination at peak with a (washout) warning when the Moon will drown it out.	On‑device: baked shower table + clock

🕑 Clocks & idle

Screen	What it shows	Source
Cosmic clocks	An exotic time readout cycling three faces: sidereal time (local when a location is set, else Greenwich), Mars time (MTC + Mars Sol Date), and the Julian date.	On‑device from the clock + your location
Zulu (UTC) clock	The idle screen — a large UTC clock (HH:MM:SS, 24‑hour). Honours the night auto‑dim, the same as the radar. Always available, so the rotation is never empty.	On‑device (NTP clock)
Splash	A starfield welcome card — a desk window into everything above you — shown on a cold start, only until the first live feed lands.	Static

On the roadmap. Orbitscope is built so each new screen is purely additive — a feed (or some on‑device math) plus a draw routine. Next up: a Skywatch sky‑dome plotting every satellite passing overhead — bright passes and Starlink trains, not just the ISS — reusing the same on‑device SGP4 propagator the Next ISS pass screen already runs.

🚨 Alerts

Orbitscope can push phone notifications via ntfy (see Alerts and Watchlist for how ntfy works). Set a topic and pick which triggers fire — each independently toggleable. All triggers are edge‑detected and seeded at boot, so the existing backlog never pings you, only fresh events; notifications are throttled to one every few seconds.

Trigger	Fires when	Default
Launch imminent	A tracked launch crosses T‑10 minutes, and again at T‑1 minute, so you can tune into the stream in time.	On
Aurora likely	The Kp index reaches storm level (G2 / Kp ≥ 6) — and, if you've set a location, when the auroral oval actually reaches your latitude.	On
Solar flare	The Sun throws an M‑class or larger X‑ray flare (with a higher‑priority push for an X‑class).	On
ISS overhead	About 5 minutes before a visible (sunlit) ISS pass over your location. (Needs a location set.)	On
Asteroid close approach	A near‑Earth asteroid is going to pass within 1 lunar distance of Earth.	On
Deep‑space probe contact	Reserved — the toggle is on the page but this trigger isn't wired up yet, so it never fires.	Off

Leave the topic blank to disable all alerts regardless of the toggles.

⚙️ Configuration

Everything is set from the same web page as the radar — Configuration Reference explains how to open it. The Orbitscope build's page offers:

Setting	Description
Latitude / Longitude	Your location. Optional, but it unlocks the location‑aware screens and alerts: the Next ISS pass and Star map screens, the "does the aurora reach you" check, the local sidereal clock, and the night auto‑dim. Without it, the non‑location screens still run.
ntfy.sh topic + triggers	The phone‑alert topic and the per‑trigger toggles (launch, aurora, flare, ISS overhead, asteroid; the DSN toggle is reserved). Blank topic = all alerts off.
Screens — order & enable	A comma‑separated list of screen ids in rotation order; omit one to hide it. Valid ids: iss, isspass, launch, kp, solarwind, scales, flare, aurora, dsn, deepspace, asteroid, humans, moon, starmap, eclipse, meteor, cosmic, splash, clock. Leave it blank to rotate all screens in the default order. (A listed screen still only appears once its feed has data.)
Brightness / Auto‑dim	The same backlight and night‑dim controls as the radar — at night (sun below the horizon at your location) the brightness is cut to a fifth.
Backend base URL (advanced)	Optional Valar space‑feed backend to poll instead of the public APIs. Empty by default — the device goes direct.

Changes apply live on Save, with no reboot — same as the radar. (There's no API‑key field: every Orbitscope source is keyless.)

⬆️ Getting it & updates

Orbitscope is its own firmware image on its own update channel, so a device set up as Orbitscope only ever pulls Orbitscope firmware (and a radar device only pulls radar firmware) — the products never cross. Over‑the‑air updates otherwise work exactly as on the radar; see Firmware Updates.

Related

• Configuration Reference — opening the web config page
• Alerts and Watchlist — how ntfy phone alerts work
• Clock and Brightness — the auto‑dim the clocks honour
• Network and Setup — Wi‑Fi setup
• Quakescope · Quillscope · Reelscope · Missileer — its sibling editions