Thursday, July 21, 2016
See the ISS buzz Jupiter and Mars AGAIN (22-23 July, 2016)
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| The ISS passes between Mars, Saturn and Antares, as seen from Adelaide on the evening of Friday 22 July at 18:03 ACST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen. | The ISS passes near Antares and Saturn, as seen from Alice Springs on the on the evening of Saturday 23 July at 18:46 ACST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen. | The ISS passes just below Jupiter, as seen from Sydney on the evening of Friday 2 July at 18:33 AEST. Simulated in Stellarium (the ISS will actually be a bright dot), click to embiggen. |
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| All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Friday 22 July for Adelaide. | All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Saturday 23 July for Alice Springs. | All sky chart showing local times from Heavens Above for Friday 22 July for Sydney. |
On July 22 and 23 there is 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 Mars and Antaresat varying times, others close to Jupiter and in still others there are close passes to bright stars such as the pointers, sometimes close passes to all of the above and in a few places the ISS might even pass over Jupiter or Antares.
Friday evening (22 July) sees the ISS pass close to Antares and Saturn as seen from Perth and Adelaide. Sydney, Alice Springs, Brisbane and Melbourne all see close passes to Jupiter, with Sydney almost seeing the ISS pass in front of it (regions nearby may see the ISS pass over Jupiter).
Saturday evening (23rd) Sees the ISS pass cose to Antareas and Saturn from Alcie SPrings (with the ISS almost passing over Antares) and Brisbane, With Adelaide, Sydney and Perth seeing reasonably close passes to Jupiter.
On both dates there are also closish passes to various other right stars (like the pointers and Arcturus).
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, a small difference in location can mean the difference between the ISS passing over Jupiter and missing it completely.
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, Jupiter, Mars, Satellite, unaided eye
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:05 pm 
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