Topic: The Night Sky (Read 8529 times)

Paul72 · « **on:** September 29, 2011 »

Went out to my back garden last night as the stars seemed particularly bright and saw a lot of good constellations. I also saw a very bright star that over an hour or two moved position. This got me thinking that I may have been looking at the International Space Station. After a close look with my binoculars and I could make out that it wasn't a spherical shape and (while I'm not absolutely sure) perhaps some of the solar panels.

I later got on to google and found these two interesting sites, the first one does indeed confirm that it's orbital path takes it over the UK and the second one is handy for your exact location and showing any satellites you might also see.

http://heavens-above.com/

http://spaceweather.com/flybys/country.php?PHPSESSID=jmg11sg2ss4j0cp032hopgjmf1

Oisín · « **Reply #1 on:** September 29, 2011 »

I believe I seen that too last night. It was rather bright, compared to the already bright stars beside it.

Good find on those websites.

suspectmonkey · « **Reply #2 on:** September 30, 2011 »

I use the Star Walk app on iPhone which is great for identifying constellations, planets and satellites. Unfortunately finding dark skies is not quite so easy! Still takes my breath away when I see the Milky Way, but I've only seen it twice over the last year, both of which were in the Mournes.

Paul, I could be wrong and hopefully someone will correct me if I am, but I'm not sure if the object you were tracking was the ISS. It definitely is possible to see it from the UK and it regularly passes over our skies, but my experience of viewing satellites is that they actually move quite quickly across the sky and can be gone from view in a matter of minutes. Of course stars and planets change position across the nights sky and a planet would move noticeably over the space of an hour or two.

One way of finding out for sure is to use the absolutely superb open source planetarium software - Stellarium. After setting up your location you can set a date/time either past or future and simulate what you can see in the sky. You can speed up the simulations so you can literally watch a planet or satellite arc across the sky in relation to the stars. Very useful for finding out what you might have seen on a previous evening or what you could potentially see on a future evening.

Paul72 · « **Reply #3 on:** September 30, 2011 »

Quote from: suspectmonkey on September 30, 2011

Paul, I could be wrong and hopefully someone will correct me if I am, but I'm not sure if the object you were tracking was the ISS. It definitely is possible to see it from the UK and it regularly passes over our skies, but my experience of viewing satellites is that they actually move quite quickly across the sky and can be gone from view in a matter of minutes. Of course stars and planets change position across the nights sky and a planet would move noticeably over the space of an hour or two.

Yeah, I'm not completely sure that it was the ISS but it certainly wasn't a star. It was brighter than any planet I've looked at and the shape made me fairly certain it was a man-made object. I think i read somewhere that the amount of time it takes a sattelite to pass in the sky depends on its orbit was so I may have been looking at something in a higher orbit.

I'll still keep Fox Mulder's number handy if it was something else.....

suspectmonkey · « **Reply #4 on:** September 30, 2011 »

Quote from: Paul72 on September 30, 2011

I'll still keep Fox Mulder's number handy if it was something else.....

Hehehe... I forgot to mention that possibility

big chris · « **Reply #5 on:** September 30, 2011 »

Had a look at the NASA site it said the ISS should have been WSW only thing I can see is Jupiter which is pretty bright, but then with a few drinks in me I could be wrong on direction I was looking

twentyclicks · « **Reply #6 on:** September 30, 2011 »

I saw ISS twice in Corsica and it fairly shifts! It orbits the earth every 90mins so not much hanging around... is very bright compared to normal satellites which look like tiny stars and seem to move about the speed of a high plane (without the blinking wing lights).

Saw the milky way a bit but there was usually a bit of haze that took out a lot of the smaller stars... not as defined as you might see in winter.

suspectmonkey · « **Reply #7 on:** September 30, 2011 »

RedLeader should be identifying a cross sale opportunity in this thread

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Author Topic: The Night Sky (Read 8529 times)

Paul72

The Night Sky

Oisín

Re: The Night Sky

suspectmonkey

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Paul72

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suspectmonkey

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big chris

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twentyclicks

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suspectmonkey

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