Times/directions for Saturday night's pass of the ISS/Shuttle (docked)

It has suddenly become popular to see the ISS... Weird! It's great to see so many people interested (the astronomy forum as been getting ~200-300 simultaneous views per night).

Here are tomorrow nights viewing times for the ISS/Shuttle (docked):

It'll rise at 23:17 directly west and it'll set at 23:22, in the SSE. It'll be visible for about 4.5 minutes (depending on cloud cover, of course). It'll only rise to an alititude of 30 degrees (that's about 3 stacked fists held at arms length). It'll reach a maximum brightness of -2.2, which is about half as bright as tonight (Friday) night's pass.

That's the only visible pass for tonight.

Hope this helps people who hope to see it.

kleefarr

Praying for a reasonably clear sky here in Kilkenny.

kleefarr

I assume that this is the ISS crew getting the docking area ready for the connection later..

http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

Interesting.

Best viewed in VLC player. (For me anyway.)

jumpguy

Yup, it's certainly amazing to see the population boom on the astronomy forums all of a sudden. Could've done with the company! Hope y'all remember there's more to see in the sky than the ISS and shuttle (although they're probably the more interesting ones atm).

For those of ye in Dublin, is there any difficulty spotting it with the light pollution? Everytime I was up there it was pretty bad, definetly wouldn't see anything until it's well up from the horizon.

Ricky91t

jumpguy wrote: »

Yup, it's certainly amazing to see the population boom on the astronomy forums all of a sudden. Could've done with the company! Hope y'all remember there's more to see in the sky than the ISS and shuttle (although they're probably the more interesting ones atm).

For does of ye in Dublin, is there any difficulty spotting it with the light pollution? Everytime I was up there it was pretty bad, definetly wouldn't see anything until it's well up from the horizon.

Think i'll be staying around for abit longer than the "boom" will have to dig out my binoculars and see what i can spot

Dusty87

Ricky91t wrote: »

Think i'll be staying around for abit longer than the "boom" will have to dig out my binoculars and see what i can spot

Same as, i was always interested as a kid wit my little telescope the big man in the red suit brought me. This forum and the friendly members in it has brought the interest back!

Slow Motion

jumpguy wrote: »

Yup, it's certainly amazing to see the population boom on the astronomy forums all of a sudden. Could've done with the company! Hope y'all remember there's more to see in the sky than the ISS and shuttle (although they're probably the more interesting ones atm).

For those of ye in Dublin, is there any difficulty spotting it with the light pollution? Everytime I was up there it was pretty bad, definetly wouldn't see anything until it's well up from the horizon.

Nope not with the ISS and Shuttle, saw it perfectly last night the wether complied, cloud on thu but saw it fine on wed. In Finglas btw

Beeker

It is strange, I have people in work and family who know I am interested in this stuff asking for times and where to look. The cant believe that it has been passing overhead for 10 years now and never saw it.

Beeker

Beeker wrote: »

It is strange, I have people in work and family who know I am interested in this stuff asking for times and where to look. The cant believe that it has been passing overhead for 10 years now and never saw it.

I completely agree. It's as strange, I've had neighbours/family asking me for times/directions, and when I tell them that this has been visible for 10 or so years they're shocked. The ISS isn't even the best site in the night sky: there are countless other objects that, if people saw once, they'd be hooked.

Ricky91t

Beeker wrote: »

It is strange, I have people in work and family who know I am interested in this stuff asking for times and where to look. The cant believe that it has been passing overhead for 10 years now and never saw it.

Seems it's getting a lot of publicity this time round,On the radios and what not,Even saw my neighbours out two nights ago just watching the ISS go over,I think seeing endeavour as such a low level set the hype off and the next morning today FM was mobbed with text messages about it,And since then people have been looking out for the shuttle,Some have seen the ISS others the SS and want to see it again.

Ricky91t

Crap skies here in Kerry not looking good

Is there any reason why it won't be visible at 9:30-9:40 ish?

Watching it on nasa world wind and it's coming past ireland very soon so adding 97 mins would be just after 9:30?Still too bright?

Beeker

Ricky91t wrote: »

Crap skies here in Kerry not looking good

Is there any reason why it won't be visible at 9:30-9:40 ish?

Watching it on nasa world wind and it's coming past ireland very soon so adding 97 mins would be just after 9:30?Still too bright?

Yeah too bright at 9:30. Sunset is at 21:39 here in Waterford and 21:49 in Kerry.

Delta Kilo

Crap weather to see any space activity in Galway tonight. I have to admit Jammy I am one of the converted ones that is adding to the ~300 views per night but I find it very interesting.

For those of you who are interested, there is a really good film called October Sky that has been one of my favourite films for years now. Saw it on RTE1 a few years ago and loved it. I recently "bought" it off that ubiquitous website that everyone "buys" stuff from and would recommend people to do same. There is a book as well that I have always meant to get my hands on but never got round to it.

mike65

Nah, too cloudy in the southern half of the sky

suzieb

too cloudy in north co dublin

Hopefully will see them together again.

gpod123

I seen it clear enough here in Donegal, not too many clouds. Have seen it every night and twice last night. Getting really interested in this sky watching:)

jumpguy

Wasn't in to watch tonight. Status cloud blanketting here anyway, no visibility. No astronomy to be done tonight.

fifilarue

Such a buzz when you get to see stuff but rain and cloud last night over Ballinasloe prevented any sighting. Have been watching the skies since I was a child from the back garden of my parent's place. Anyone remember the excitement of Halley's Comet in the 1980s? We used to stand out in the garden and wait for it to appear in the night sky, for what seemed like months. Saw Endeavour and its 'flaming tank' from the same spot last week and just thought about how much has changed-when we were kids, this place was the country, we were full of innocence and awe looking for shooting stars. Now, in this place, there's a motorway, light pollution, noise and everything seems to bring hassle. For a short while every evening for the last week or so, it was great to skywatch again and for a few moments, marvel at the power space and sky commands, just like it did when we were kids.

Stargate

fifilarue wrote: »

Such a buzz when you get to see stuff but rain and cloud last night over Ballinasloe prevented any sighting. Have been watching the skies since I was a child from the back garden of my parent's place. Anyone remember the excitement of Halley's Comet in the 1980s? We used to stand out in the garden and wait for it to appear in the night sky, for what seemed like months. Saw Endeavour and its 'flaming tank' from the same spot last week and just thought about how much has changed-when we were kids, this place was the country, we were full of innocence and awe looking for shooting stars. Now, in this place, there's a motorway, light pollution, noise and everything seems to bring hassle. For a short while every evening for the last week or so, it was great to skywatch again and for a few moments, marvel at the power space and sky commands, just like it did when we were kids.

Great post there fifilarue
tnx,

same as myself tracking beautiful MIR :P

I was using an Amiga 1200 at the time and Pc`s were very far and between .
i used to have a floppy disk posted to me from the uk with the Kepler Elements for tracking her
Then i would travel a fewmiles to my buddys place who had the said same PC where he would convert the amsat type file to the 2 line element file i needed , then rush home , input them into my then sat track prog and out id go waiting to see Mir , plus id listen to them on my scanner , such great nights , mir was awesome ,

Now its the ISS and SS and everything astronomy , i recently bought a
8 Inch Celestron /Newt Telescope after using a smaller one for years and years , cant wait for dark clear winter nights lol

Regards
Stargate

gpod123

Hi, is there anything visible tonight or is that it?

mike65

Yay just missed it!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055625799

I've you've a good view of the southern horizon, there's another pass at 23:42. It'll rise in the WSW, it'll reach a pretty low altitude and it'll only be visible for ~2.5 minutes (whereas the pass just now was nearly 6 minutes).

fifilarue

thanks stargate-I your passion for space obviously matches your technical expertise! I remember Mir well-called my dog after it! This is probably the wrong place to ask this, so apologies in advance, but while I was waiting for 11.42 sighting last night, just before it appeared I saw two objects, really high up in the sky and they appeared to move away from each other in a straight line. They looked like stars and they were moving really fast. Too high for planes-were they satellites?