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Simplify Earth-satellite intro: drop obscure point
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I really shouldn’t have added this obscure point here.  I probably did
it because I’m not sure where it belongs.  Let’s wait and see if anyone
else ever needs this explained, in which case we’ll find a new home for it.
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brandon-rhodes committed Mar 12, 2024
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11 changes: 1 addition & 10 deletions documentation/earth-satellites.rst
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Expand Up @@ -45,16 +45,7 @@ for artificial satellites in Earth orbit:
For earlier dates,
you will want to pull an old TLE from the archives.

4. A satellite’s orbital elements are in constant flux
from effects like atmospheric drag, the Moon’s gravity,
and its own propulsion.
In particular, the true anomaly parameter can swing wildly
for satellites with nearly circular orbits,
because the reference point from which true anomaly is measured —
the satellite’s perigee —
can be moved by even slight perturbations to the orbit.

5. Given the low accuracy of TLE elements,
4. Given the low accuracy of TLE elements,
there is no point in calling the usual Skyfield
:meth:`~skyfield.positionlib.Barycentric.observe()` method
that repeatedly re-computes an object’s position
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