Monday 17 February 2014

Look Up!

My daughter reminded me that the International Space Station would be visible last night but of course I forgot to look and missed the first crossing. I did however see it just under an hour later, not as bright as it would have been earlier and for a shorter time. Still, it was exciting in a geeky kind of way and weird when it just suddenly vanished.

And it was a beautiful clear sky last night, well worth going out just to see the gorgeous moon, stars and planets.

The ISS will be back this evening (17th February) – visible in the UK and very bright I believe. In my location it will be visible at 5.44 pm for 4 minutes at 43 degrees above WSW and will disappear at 12 degrees above E. It will be visible again briefly at 7.21.

Wherever you live in the world, you can look up when it will be possible to see the ISS at NASA Spot theStation. And you can do real time tracking at ISS Tracker and you can see what the astronauts are seeing right now at Astroviewer.

You can even get an app for your phone for spotting it.

And if the sky floats your boat (or flies your spaceship), Planetarium is a great site where you set your location and it will come up with a map of the sky above.

Happy Space Station Spotting!

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Nothing to do with space stations - just a couple of gratuitous photos of my ladies chilling. Harley's not really as big as she looks in the bottom photo. She's still quite petite. And Fizz's feet aren't as big as they look in the top photo either!





15 comments:

  1. I didn't know about the space station, Teresa. I shall have to find out when I can see it in Sussex.

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    1. I tracked where it would be (above my town at 6.44pm) then my daughter and I stood in the street and stared up at the clouded sky until she said, "I feel rather silly," and we went back in!

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    2. It was visible here and very big and bright in the sky - I missed it though. But it will be back again tonight - I'm hoping for no clouds x

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  2. Damn. I missed it! Spent much of yesterday reading an incredibly complicated board (!) book about planets to my three-year-old grandson. I have no idea what he made of it, but he loved it. I was left rather confused...

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    1. I missed it too, Frances - I was with one of my granddaughters at her friend's birthday party.

      The minds of small children amaze me - how much they soak up and understand x

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    1. Plenty more chances to see it coming up, Patsy x

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  4. Fizz and Harley are such beautiful cats, Teresa. They look so contented too. I should make time to look up more often because I missed the space station too. x

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    1. They are lovely, Joanna - even if they do turn the bathroom radio on at full blast in the middle of the night which of course is when they decide it's time to play x

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  5. I didn't know about that either, Teresa! I do like looking at stars and planets. Lovely photos.

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    1. I prefer the stars and planets, but it's interesting to see something from down here flying round up there - not that I managed to this time when it was at it's most visible, so only got a short glimpse, but perhaps next time it's due over us x

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  6. Nothing geeky about star watching at all! If you've got an android phone have you checked out the Android Skyview app. It's like a sat nav that tracks the stars for you! I have hours of endless fun on a starlit night!! And...it picks up the international space station. Caroline x p.s cats look so contented now!

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    1. My Android phone can't cope with the Skyview app, but my daughter has it on hers. It's amazing what you can use phones for now isn't it - might even tempt me into getting a new phone one of these days just so I can check out the stars! She showed me the other night and was pointing out what was what - so interesting!
      The cats are really happy and settled together now, it's quite lovely really x

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  7. Now that's something new to me, thanks Teresa, have signed up for alerts. The wonders of technology! :-)

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