Space station returns to skies above SoCal for the next week

The International Space Station The International Space Station will be a special treat for all of us in Southern California over the next several days. We will have some truly spectacular “fly-overs” for some of the brightest passes theoretically possible (the brightness is determined by how the space station – and particularly their football-pitch sized solar panels – happen to be aligned with the sun).

For those of you who may be new to viewing it the ISS will be visible as one of the brightest (mostly the brightest) star-like object in the sky as it passes approx 200 miles overhead at over 17000 mph. The table below gives a lot of information about each visible pass including when and where to look.  The lower the Mag number the brighter the ISS will be.  So for example the pass on Jun 21 starting at approx 10:20pm will be one of the brighter ones.

Be sure to wave to the SIX astronauts/cosmonauts who are calling the ISS home right now. (note: there are currently nine people in space right now – three are on the Chinese space station)

Click on the date for each pass for further detail.

Date Bright Start Highest point End
[Mag] Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
24 Jun -2.4 21:29:34 10° WNW 21:32:39 39° SW 21:33:57 26° S
25 Jun -3.3 20:40:28 10° NW 20:43:43 84° SW 20:46:58 10° SE
26 Jun -0.7 21:29:47 10° WSW 21:31:05 12° SW 21:32:22 10° SSW
27 Jun -1.4 20:39:37 10° WNW 20:42:16 23° SW 20:44:54 10° S

All of the predictions above provided by Heavens-Above.com where you can get your own predictions for this and many other neat things to see in the sky above you.

Posted in ISS

Venus and Mercury get close tonight (Jun 19)!

Look low to the west after sunset tonight and you will see the very brightest “star” (that isn’t a star) in our skies currently. That is in fact the planet Venus. Just 2 degrees to the left of that you will see little old elusive MERCURY. It’s a twofer!

Image shows the close pass of Venus and Mercury

image created by the Luminos App for the iPAD

 

 

 

Public viewing at the Griffith Observatory

These photos show what happens outside of the Griffith Observatory  every cloudless night they are open.   Telescopes are setup outside and the public can view from the (small) variety of astronomical objects which might be visible that night under the rather light-polluted skies of Los Angeles.

Tonight the public could see the Moon and the planet Saturn.

Public viewing at the Griffith Observatory

These photos show what happens outside of the Griffith Observatory  every cloudless night they are open.   Telescopes are setup outside and the public can view from the (small) variety of astronomical objects which might be visible that night under the rather light-polluted skies of Los Angeles.

Tonight the public could see the Moon and the planet Saturn.

If you prefer – here is a full-screen slideshow