{"id":321367,"date":"2026-03-09T22:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T22:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/321367\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T22:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T22:11:11","slug":"real-time-iss-tracker-shows-off-the-goods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/321367\/","title":{"rendered":"Real-Time ISS Tracker Shows Off The Goods"},"content":{"rendered":"

What hardware hacker doesn\u2019t have a soft spot for transparent cases? While they may have fallen out of mainstream favor, they have an undeniable appeal to anyone with an interest in electronic or mechanical devices. Which is why the Orbigator built by [wyojustin]<\/a> stands out among similar desktop orbital trackers we\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

Conceptually, it\u2019s very similar to the International Space Station tracking lamp that [Will Dana] built in 2025<\/a>. In fact, [wyojustin] cites it specifically as one of the inspirations for this project. But unlike that build, which saw a small model of the ISS moving across the surface of the globe, a transparent globe is rotated around the internal mechanism. This not only looks gorgeous, but solves a key problem in [Will]\u2019s design \u2014 that is, there\u2019s no trailing servo wiring that needs to be kept track of.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For anyone who wants an Orbigator of their own, [wyojustin] has done a fantastic job of documenting the hardware and software aspects of the build, and all the relevant files are available in the project\u2019s GitHub repository<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 3D printable components have been created with OpenSCAD, the firmware responsible for calculating the current position of the ISS on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is written in MicroPython, and the PCB was designed in KiCad. Incidentally, we noticed that Hackaday alum [Anool Mahidharia<\/a>] appears to have been lending a hand with the board design.<\/p>\n

As much as we love these polished orbital trackers, we\u2019ve seen far more approachable builds<\/a> if you don\u2019t need something so elaborate. If you\u2019re more interested in keeping an eye out for planes and can get your hands on a pan-and-tilt security camera, it\u2019s even easier<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What hardware hacker doesn\u2019t have a soft spot for transparent cases? While they may have fallen out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-321367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}