Data Downloads

Tidewater Mfc, LLC (Tidewater) may provide access to updated information in current and future versions of Tidewater Planetarium. Any such data will be hosted on our servers. We will never download new data to your device except as requested by you through an explicit request from within Tidewater Planetarium. New software or data will never be automatically downloaded to your device or installed automatically.

Satellite Data Downloads

With version 2.4.0, Tidewater Planetarium introduced two "Earth Views". These views allow you to display thousands of objects in Earth orbit, as tracked by North American Aerospace Defense command (NORAD). This data is shared by permission of NORAD.

Satellite data is highly changeable. Satellites obits are affected by many factors. They can reenter the atmosphere. New satellites are launched. Operators use thrusters to change the orbital elements of their satellites. Atmospheric drag, solar wind and even radiant energy from the Sun, Moon and Earth can be hard to predict. And errors in earlier estimates are sometimes corrected. To update this ever changing information, after each startup Tidewater Planetarium will ask if you wish to check our servers for newer satellite data and offer you the chance to update your satellite data. Or you can check for new data using the File and Earth view menus. If you request a data update, new files will be downloaded to your device (the files are small) and they will be loaded for use in the Earth views.

Tidewater may verify your license information to ensure you are a licensed user before downloading new satellite data. This helps protect our servers from certain kinds of security risks.