Some Examples
This first image shows shows how three WorldView satellites, all sun synchronous, are in similar "planes" or they have very similar Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN) so they get comparable images of the ground below. WorldView 2 and 3 are in the same plane and WorldView 4 is in a very similar plane, just shifted a bit.
If you are fairly familiar with the ground trace that you get for a satellite like the ISS, this next ground trace will look odd. It sort of looks like repeating shark fins - this moderately deep space satellite has a "flat" ground trace near perigee but "hangs" in space at apogee and the resulting ground trace looks sort of reminiscent of a shark fin to me.
Another odd looking orbit is frequently called the "Molniya" orbit - it has a very low perigee but a high apogee. The inclination is frequently 63.4 degrees and the apogee is chosen to be over the Northern Hemisphere - these act like "geosynchronous" satellites but over the higher latitudes. They appear to "hang" in space so that they are easier to point antenna at.
You can see that the ground track repeats - to the satellite can communicate with a fixed ground station more easily. It can also stare down at the same part of the planet regularly if that is the mission of the satellite. The version of this ground trace from JSatTrak (shown on an earlier page) is better in many ways - this shows what the ground trace looks like on Gpredict.
For Gpredict only: Let's talk about how to determine when a satellite that you are interested in is visible. Get a list of interesting satellites (some of that list will be covered later in the Extending Your Satellite Catalog page) and look for satellites with current epoch times (this indicates that the orbit may be still accurate) and a mean motion that is between 15 and about 12. This will get you a good list of low orbiting satellites you can start with, later you might want to look for satellites with larger orbits where the mean motion is between 7 and 2.
Build a new module with that list of satellites. Put about ten satellites in there for now then go to Sky At A Glance (below) and you will see the visible satellites and approximately when they are visible. The time scale is UTC.
You can use any smart phone, the clock app, to display UTC (probably shown as GMT).
Now use an app on your phone (I use Orbitrack by Southern Stars) to display a track that the satellite will follow in the sky above you. Pick out an identifiable star that the satellite will go by and look at that (with binoculars, etc) when the satellite is going by.
Gpredict also generates "look angles" or Azimuth and Elevation that allow you to point a telescope and observe the satellite; see the below example, these are look angles for satellite #59. That satellite is a low inclination, low altitude satellite that many observers (who are at higher latitudes) have a lot of trouble observing.
When you have Gpredict to control the mount (which I have not yet done myself!) you use the Antenna Control dialog box (under the odd little arrow icon on the top right) to select the satellite and start tracking it. When you see, on Sky At A Glance, that a satellite of interest is visible - go to Antenna Control and select the satellite under the "Target" option.
I have been making "observations" of satellites for a couple of years now, using the directions on the linked page: Tracking Satellites Optically . For some ideas of what you can do with this information and these programs, go to the next page in this site: