Astroblog: You too can see the Space Shuttle (as a dot)

Sunday, September 10, 2006

You too can see the Space Shuttle (as a dot)

Over at Tom's he reports that the Shuttle launched successfully (I started to watch the countdown at NASA, but fell asleep). Some debris hit the shuttle 2 minutes 1 5 seconds into the launch, but the NASA shuttle page suggest that nothing is wrong, although they are still inspecting the heat shield.

So what about seeing the shuttle, well, you can see the ISS with the shuttle nearby (later docked) as a bright dot streaking overhead (ulness you have a fast tracking telescope and a web cam). Pop over to Heavens Above for predictions of the visibility ISS and STS-115 (the current Shuttle mission) for your site. Sadly from Adelaide all the passes bar one are around 5 am in the morning (Sigh).

Monday mornings pass should have the STS-115 3 minutes ahead of the ISS, separated by about 60 degrees. Tuesdays pass prediction has them quite divergent, but I would check closer to the time as orbits get updated.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 9:21 pm