Astroblog: Catch a Series of Bright International Space Sation Passes (23-30 May 2016)

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Catch a Series of Bright International Space Sation Passes (23-30 May 2016)


The ISS passes below Jupiter, as seen from Adelaide on the evening of Tuesday 24 May at 17:52 ACST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen.	The ISS passes below Jupiter, as seen from Brisbane on the on the evening of Wednesday 25 May at 17:33 AEST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen.	The ISS passes above Jupiter, as seen from Perth on the evening of Tuesday 24 May at 17:56 AWST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen.

All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Tuesday 24 May for Adelaide.	All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Wednesday 25 May for Brisbane.	All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Tuesday 24 May for Perth.

This week there a series of bright passes of the International Space Station occurring in the early evening. In some places in Australia the ISS will pass close to Jupiter, in others there are close passes to brig stars..

Tuesday evening (24 May) sees the ISS pass close to Jupiter as seen from Perth and Adelaide. On Wednesday 25 the ISS passes close to Jupiter as seen from Brisbane.

There's lots more, although several are close to the horizon. For example, on the 23rd from Brisbane the ISS will pass close to alpha Centauri, On the 24th from Melbourne, the ISS passes through Orion's Belt.

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 Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth as examples, choosing some of the more distinctive events, but there are lots more that are perfectly nice.).

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 @ 10:29 pm

Comments:

I live in Gray Court South Carolina, USA. Very early Wednesday morning on the 23rd around 3:30 a.m. I thought I had seen a slow moving comet moving from the south to the north. But now after reading about the International Space Station maybe it was that and not a comet.

# posted by