Space Station Spotting

[Eric Mc]

For those interested, the International Space Station is visible again over the next few evenings.

I saw it last night, low in the South/South West as it passed just above the moon.

It will be visible again tonight for about 6 minutes starting at 18.39 BST.
Tonight's passing is higher and brighter so should be even easier to see.

By the way, the Shuttle is due up again on 23 October so a bit of ISS/Shuttle watching will be on the cards over the next couple of weeks.

[Eric Mc]

On occasions it can be VERY bright (the brightest object in the sky after the moon, the sun and Venus). Last night it was easily visible to the naked eye. Its apparent speed is roughly the same as a high flying airliner - but it is almost 50 times higher!
It should be brighter tonight - but not as bright as it can be.

It is better to pick it up with the naked eye and then follow it with hand held binoculars. I was able to follow it with the bins last night until it faded away as it entered the earth's shadow.

[Eric Mc]

Try www.heavens-above.com

You can register for free. Just put in your location in the UK and you will be able to get a list of passes of the ISS (and Shuttle when it's in orbit) and many other orbiting objects visible from where you live.

[Eric Mc]

At the moment the ISS is midway across the Atlantic and looks like it will cross just off the coast south of England in the next ten to 15 minutes. It will be back again in 90 minutes and will probably be more directly overhead.

Heavens Above doesn't show these as visiable passes as they will occur in broad daylight. I wonder if it will be visible in a clear blue sky?

Nope - too much glare.

I'll try again on the next pass.

Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 20th October 15:42

[Eric Mc]

Crossing the Caribbean at the moment - so should be back in about 20 minutes or so. Nice clear blue skies over Farnborough at the moment so it will be worth a another try.

Update - nothing again. I guess I'll have to wait until it's dark.

Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 20th October 17:15

[Eric Mc]

Third time lucky. Easily visible this time.

As I said earlier, heavens-above.com (you need to register but it's free) provides a list of passes for the next few days. Hopefully, a few with the Shuttle attached will be visble. It appears slightly brighter when the 90 foot long Shuttle is docked.

On the last mission, I had the good fortune to see the space station being chased across the sky by Atlantis as it closed in for its rendevous and docking. They were separated by two minutes - which equates to about 600 miles at orbital speeds (17,500 mph).

Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 20th October 19:45

[Eric Mc]

Date Mag Starts Ends
Time Alt.Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
20 Oct -1.5 18:39:28 10 W 18:42:16 48 SSW 18:45:03 10 SE
20 Oct 0.7 20:15:46 10 WSW 20:16:51 12 SW 20:17:14 11 SSW
21 Oct -0.3 19:02:38 10 W 19:05:04 24 SSW 19:07:29 10 SSE
22 Oct 0.9 19:26:33 10 WSW 19:27:41 12 SW 19:28:49 10 SSW
23 Oct -0.1 18:13:25 10 W 18:15:51 25 SSW 18:18:17 10 SSE
24 Oct 1.1 18:37:14 10 WSW 18:38:26 12 SW 18:39:37 10 SSW

These are the hevens-above listings up to 29 October. It looks like it wont pass overhead the UK in darlk enough conditions to be seen after 24 October.

The timings shown indicate at what point it reaches 10 degrees above the horizon, what time it reaches maximum altitude above the observer and what time it disappears to the viewer. The "Mag" number indicates maximum brightness (called "magnitude" by astronomers). The bigger the "minus" figure, the brighter the appearance. It seems this recent pass was the brightest for a while (Mag = -1.5).

Unfortunately, I can't get the columns to line up properly with the numbers - which is a bit annoying.

Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 20th October 19:58

[Eric Mc]

No Shuttle to see at the moment. Discovery will be launched on 23rd (if there are no delays or scrubs).

[Eric Mc]

To the naked eye and even in binoculars it only shows up as a bright dot. With a proper tracked telescope and camera set up some very good amateur shots of the ISS and Shuttle have been obtained. These photos appear from time to time in the various astronomy mags and it's amazing the detail they can pick up.

[Eric Mc]

I did a search on the Internet a while ago for ground based shots of the Shuttle and the ISS and came up with nothing. All the images I've seen have been in magazines. The BBC's "Sky at Night" magazine is usually good for high quality images.

[Eric Mc]

Another pass overhead Southern England in about 1 1/2 hours (17.19 pm).

Should be very bright

[Eric Mc]

Won't be as overhead as here in Farnborough, Hants but it should still be fairly high in the sky.

[Eric Mc]

Mk1 eyeball is best fort ISS viewing.

[Eric Mc]

Speed roughly 17,500 mph - Altitude about 200 miles.

[Eric Mc]

It IS orbiting in a contra direction (sort of) to the earth's rotation. So that would have an effect as to how it is actually travelling over the rotating earth below. However, the major compnent of its apparent speed is largely from its actual velocity in space.

[Eric Mc]

Tomorrow - 17.40pm and Tuesday, 16.27pm

Both fairly good showings, if the sky is clear.

[Eric Mc]

Not bad.

[Eric Mc]

Probably knocked together on the cheap.

The following programme on amateur astronomy was OK too - although I noticed it was made in 2005 so probably a repeat.

[Eric Mc]

I think people appreciate the odd alert on matters like this.

I'll continue to let PHers know until I'm told to sod off 'cos it's getting boring.
I'm never bored by this kind of stuff.

[Eric Mc]

It won't be visible for much longer this month. The sequence of orbits eventually takes it into a pattern of overpasses that happen during daylight hours and therefore invisible to British observers. These handy "evening" passes occur only every couple of months or so.
I'm hoping we'll be able to see it from January 10 when the delayed Shuttle mission is launched.