ISS Back Tonight

shedweller

Thin crescent moon low on the horizon! Beautiful!!

Oscar Bravo

Christmas eve ISS passes. 2 passes. first one at 1719 and the second at 1856. you can always bring the children out and pretend its santa. worked lovely last year!

shedweller

Well if i hadn't loaded my lads up with nasa tv it might work! Feck sake, now yis tell me!!
Haha!
Merry Christmas to all my fellow space geeks!

Mountainsandh

Merry Christmas Shedweller and every one here !

I can't say it's Santa, we'll be tracking him on Norad so if he's in India or something at that time, that won't make any sense for the 9 year old ...

Slicemeister

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Christmas eve ISS passes. 2 passes. first one at 1719 and the second at 1856. you can always bring the children out and pretend its santa. worked lovely last year!

Complete novice here, what direction?

Mountainsandh

Every time I see it it's South West crossing overhead to South-ish East.

I think at the moment it follows a very low arc in the sky in that direction, so it wouldn't be directly up high above your head.

EoghanIRL

Slicemeister wrote: »

Complete novice here, what direction?

The answer will depend on where you live.
http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/view.cfm?country=Ireland&region=None&city=Cork#.VJoXIBAs0
If you put in your location it will give you the times and directions .
The iss is the brightest object in the sky at night so as long as you are looking in roughly the right direction you should see it . For me it is usually west to east or some variant of those directions .

The clouds have been terrible in the country side all week . I'd say no chance of me seeing it.

Mountainsandh

And just tonight it's lovely and clear here in the South East, well it was an hour ago when I took the dog out. :mad:

Every time I go out early evening it's cloudy.

80 degrees for the 5.26pm pass ! That should be nice and high, more chances to see it for me anyway.

EoghanIRL

Mountainsandh wrote: »

And just tonight it's lovely and clear here in the South East, well it was an hour ago when I took the dog out. :mad:

Every time I go out early evening it's cloudy.

80 degrees for the 5.26pm pass ! That should be nice and high, more chances to see it for me anyway.

I also live in the south east and I've been having bad luck with clouds too .:(

EoghanIRL

Sun is shining this morning and there is very little cloud . It should be visible tonight I'm going to try and show it to my younger brother .

Mountainsandh

Well, Beat radio had a very official report from the airport saying Santa Sleigh was probably going to be visible, so now the children will be outside with me watching, thankfully the Norad watch is a bit on back burner for now, so it's not too inconsistent. There's wisps of clouds here in West Waterford, hope they'll stay away for 5.26pm.

Basic question I know, but what time are the astronauts following up there ?

thecommander

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Basic question I know, but what time are the astronauts following up there ?

GMT/UTC

Mountainsandh

oh that's what I thought, handy, thanks !

keith16

Anyone have any problems with the NASA spot the station website?

EoghanIRL

I think the kids have crashed the website !

Perfect pass there . Full 4 minutes .

Anyone have the scoop on the second pass ? Can't get onto nasa site . I think it was 6:58 sw to s?

Mech1

EoghanIRL wrote: »

Anyone have the scoop on the second pass ? Can't get onto nasa site . I think it was 6:58 sw to s?

I need that info too!

EoghanIRL

We broke nasa :L

Knifey Spoony

Lovely pass there. That crescent moon is something else as well, you can make out surface features of the area in shade with a pair of binoculars. Mars isn't too far from the moon as well. Gonna be a great evening for observing.

bren2002

6.57 13 degrees above sw

Hotblack Desiato

Decent views just now in Dublin, missed the earlier pass though but the kids saw this one and then sprinkled their reindeer food in the garden

EoghanIRL

Brought my brother out to see the space station pass and told him it was santa
He loved it , it sealed the deal . Such a great idea .

ScrubsfanChris

Some long exposure shots from earlier...
There was still some light on the western horizon so I kept having to fiddle with the settings. (ISS left the frame in pic 2 :rolleyes: )







Full resolution attached......

+ Bonus arty shot

Mountainsandh

Keith16, yes, had problems with the site earlier on too, was trying to get pass times for France but couldn't do the map thing, when I selected a town it was taking ages to load the page, then page was all weird.
I got the times anyway, hope they watched it over there.

We saw the brilliant 5.20 pm pass, thankfully although the official time I had in mind was 5.26, we were looking slightly before, as it arrived some minutes early.

We tried shouting at him really loud (the beauty of being out in the middle of nowhere) and waved, just so he won't forget to call out to us when he's finished with Africa and all that.

greedygoblin

Next pass of the ISS is at 18:05 to 18:11, starting in the west, setting in the south. Sticking with the santa theme, you could always let on it's the big man returning home after his days work is done.

shedweller

It passed just over the top edge of the moon a minute ago. Dim enough but impressive all the same!

Zyzz

Any idea when the next pass is?

Knifey Spoony

Today at 5.09pm. According to my app, it will be 23 deg above the horizon at its highest. Looks to be the best of the last three visible passes for another while.

EoghanIRL

Spot the station is giving today as the last pass and the sky is cloudless here.

Hoof_Hearted

Thanks for the heads up. I got no alert but that's quite low so maybe it'll be hard for me to spot. All the same, worth going outside for on such a gorgeous clear evening.
Just checked for Dublin and it's giving 17.12 but only 15 deg above the horizon, and for one minute. I'll need to be sharp to catch it!

EoghanIRL

Yeah that pass was low !

Any idea when it will be back?