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| The ISS passes near Fomalhaut, as seen from Adelaide on the evening of Wednesday 30 December
at 21:35 ACDST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a
bright dot), click to embiggen. | The ISS passes below the Southern Cross, as seen from Sydney on the evening of Wednesday 30 December
at 22:07 AEDST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a
bright dot), click to embiggen. | The ISS passes below the Southern Cross, as seen from Perth on the evening of Wednesday 30 December
at 20:34 AWST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a
bright dot), this is different from the Heavens Above prediction which has it above the Southern Cross. click to embiggen. |
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| All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Wednesday 30 December for Adelaide. | All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Wednesday 30 December for Sydney. | All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Wednesday 30 December for Perth. |
Tonight there is a bright evening pass of the
International Space Station at or around nautical twilight (around an hour after sunset). For many places in Australia the ISS glides close the Southern
cross or pointers. In other places it comes close to the bright star Fomalhaut (Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide). Darwin sees no pass.
Example cities are below.
Time Direction Magnitude
| Alice Springs ACST Maximum altitude | 20:32:10 | 19° | 224° (SW) |
| -0.2 |
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| Adelaide ACDST Maximum altitude | 21:34:59 | 50° | 220° (SW) |
| -2.3 |
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| Brisbane AEST Maximum altitude | 19:29:36 | 48° | 226° (SW) |
| -2.2 |
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| Melbourne AEDST Maximum altitude | 22:06:36 | 42° | 215° (SW) |
| -1.9 |
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| Sydney AEDST Maximum altitude | 22:07:11 | 15° | 211° (SSW) |
| 0.1 |
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| Perth AWST Maximum altitude | 20:37:11 | 30° | 219° (SW) | | -1.1 |
When and what you will see is
VERY location dependent, so you need to use either
Heavens Above or
CalSky
to get site specific predictions for
your location (I'm using Sydney, Adelaide and Perth as examples).
Start looking several minutes before the pass is going to start to get
yourself oriented and your eyes dark adapted. Be patient, there may be slight differences in the time of the ISS appearing due to
orbit changes not picked up by the predictions.
Labels: ISS, Satellite, unaided eye
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 2:58 pm
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
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