Heavens Above

spongebob

anyone ever used this site ? It is a cool database of space junk in low earth orbit and visible to the naked eye ...typically for an hor or 2 after dusk. I have seen oubjects out to mag 4.5 / mag 5.0 but mag 4 stuff is pretty easy to find up there.

http://www.heavens-above.com/ , register and set a cookie for where you live yourself. It is extremely accurate .

Its good crack to have a junk spotting session every now ad then, especially if the junk has been flying aound for 40 years up there and is the size of a bus.

M

Agar

Heavens Above is a truly great site and one that has deservedly won praise, admiration, and awards from the Astronomical community. It doesn't just locate junk though. It also plots out iridium flares as well as passes for the International Space Station. Despite what has been written on the Internet site of a prominent Irish Astronomical company, this site gives 100% accurate times for flyovers of the ISS. It's also free so put down that phone and dial up your Internet connection instead!

halenger

I've heard it has a problem re the ISS, which it has been made aware of, with regard to NASA boosting the ISS orbit. Dunno if it's true though.

I think in all fairness ANYONE will agree that it's a great site and does a tremendous service. I've never heard anyone bad mouth it.

albertw

Originally posted by halenger I've never heard anyone bad mouth it. [/B]

Well I've read in a certain magazine (or was it an email?) that you shouldn't internet sites for this data and you should ring a number to get accurate details. Which isnt exactly bad mouthing but...

I've heard it has a problem re the ISS, which it has been made aware of, with regard to NASA boosting the ISS orbit. Dunno if it's true though.

And thats the reason they give.

NASA (ad others involved) plan these orbit boosts. They don't just turn the rockets on for a few seconds, look out the window, and see if they are high enough! The elements of locations and any planned activities are listed here:http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/orbit/ISS/SVPOST.html
from which you can plot into your favourite sat tracking software.

I've never tried to catch heavens above being wrong, It hasnt let me down yet for ISS or Mir predictions. I cant find any references online to suggest that there is anything inacurate about the Heavens Above data.

Also you can use http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html
Presumably NASA use the correct data :-)

Cheers,
~Al

Agar

Presumably NASA use the correct data :-)

They sure do, but that's cos they ring, check, and make sure!

Joke
JOKE

J O K E

Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, the above was just a bit of harmless teasing. Be very careful when you climb down from that moral high ground!

halenger

Moral high ground? What are you on about?

I already said I dunno if it's true or not. I don't really care. I'd use it. If I ever managed to get outside to take a look.

halenger

Anyway... Back to the ISS.

If anyone's interested to see where it is right now then check this out: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/index.html

It's a very nice little thing on the Nasa website.

They also of course have their own tracking facilities-they'd wanna know where their stuff is or else we'd all be very worried!

This link is for Dublin:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/SightingData/Dublin.html

They also have Waterford and Belfast but that's it.