Bright pass of the ISS tonight!

The International Space Station The International Space Station will be making a great visible overflight of Southern California tonight. Tonight will be a spectacular “fly-over” as it will be almost as bright as is 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 285 miles overhead at over 17000 mph. It will start low in the NW at 6:35pm where it will start getting higher (and brighter) as it crosses the sky towards the SE. At about 6:38 pm it will be at it’s highest above. Shortly after that it will “blink out”. What is actually happening is that the Space Station will be entering in to the Earth’s shadow as the sun sets for them (which it does almost every 45 minutes as it orbits the earth once every 90 minutes) .

Be sure to wave to the SIX astronauts/cosmonauts who are calling the ISS home right now.

More details on the pass here.

Posted in ISS

Jupiter is Back. JUPITER is BACK!!

Look to the east at 7pm and you will be treated to the wonderful view of the King of the planets rising – none other than Jupiter (actually my favorite planet to view through a telescope… yes… even more than Saturn).


Images from Stellarium

Great opportunity to see the International Space Station over SoCal tonight.

The International Space Station The International Space Station will be making a great visible overflight of Southern California tonight and for a few more nights this week. Tonight will be a spectacular “fly-over” as it will be almost as bright is is 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 October 29 starting at approx 6:22pm will be very bright. It will start low in the NW at 6:22pm then rise higher as it crosses the sky towards the NE and then drop lower and set in the SE.

Be sure to wave to the SIX astronauts/cosmonauts who are calling the ISS home right now.

Click on the date for each pass for further detail.

Date Start Highest point End
[Mag] Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
29 Oct -3.0 18:22:38 10° NW 18:25:52 47° NE 18:29:06 10° ESE
29 Oct -0.2 20:00:49 10° W 20:02:18 13° SW 20:03:47 10° SSW
30 Oct -0.8 19:11:40 10° WNW 19:14:23 23° SW 19:17:06 10° S
31 Oct -2.0 18:23:11 10° WNW 18:26:23 45° SW 18:29:35 10° SSE
02 Nov 0.1 18:24:53 10° W 18:26:34 13° SW 18:28:14 10° SSW

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.

Truly SPECTACULAR opportunity to see the ISS as it passes overhead tonight (and tomorrow night)

The International Space Station The International Space Station will be an EXTRA 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 Oct 7 starting at approx 7:47pm will be very bright. It will star lo in the SW at 7:47pm then rise high above you as it crosses the sky high above and heads towards the NE. It will “blink out” (or rather rapidly fade out) at about 7:52pm. Why does it do that? Because that is when the ISS will enter the earths shadow (i.e the Sun has “set” for them – at least until it rises for them in another 45 minutes or so).

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 Start Highest point End
[Mag] Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
07 Oct -3.3 19:47:19 10° SW 19:50:39 86° NW 19:51:33 46° NE
08 Oct -2.9 18:59:36 10° SSW 19:02:49 46° SE 19:06:02 10° ENE
08 Oct -0.4 20:37:28 10° WNW 20:39:09 16° NW 20:39:09 16° NW
09 Oct -1.3 19:48:50 10° W 19:51:43 26° NW 19:53:37 16° NNE
10 Oct -2.3 19:00:30 10° WSW 19:03:43 46° NW 19:06:57 10° NE
11 Oct -0.4 19:51:38 10° NW 19:52:59 12° NNW 19:54:20 10° N
12 Oct -0.7 19:02:30 10° WNW 19:04:50 18° NNW 19:07:11 10° NNE

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