Stargazing Update

There will be not one, not two, but 3 very good sightings of the ISS this week.
 
Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 23.00 but as it gets directly overhead it will disappear into the earth's shadow.
 
Thursday at 22.15
 
Saturday at 21.30 all three sightings coming from the North west and heading towards the South east.
 
Details can be found at www.kencampbell.info
 
Dont forget to wave at the 3 Astronauts on board!!
 
Ken

Stargazing

By Ken Campbell

The Vanishing Space Station.

After what seems like an absence of months, the International Space Station makes a return to our skies this week.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a huge Space Laboratory that is being assembled 200 miles up in space. Each time the Space Shuttle launches it takes another section up to the ISS which is then bolted onto the structure making it grow and grow. It is not only NASA who is building it; almost all nations on Earth have contributed in some way to its construction making it a truly international outpost.

The ISS is now bigger than a football field and can easily be seen from Earth; in fact it is the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. Travelling at over 17000 mph, it goes around the World in 90 minutes, a far cry from Jules Verne’s ‘around the world in 80 days’. It has a crew of three astronauts on board at the moment carrying out various experiments that cannot be performed on Earth.

We can only see the ISS when we are in exactly the right place at the right time. It has no appreciable lights of its own and so is lit by sunlight shinning on it, which means it is visible up to 1½ hours before sunrise or 1½ hours after sunset when the sky is dark enough but the Sun is still lighting it up. Its orbit around the Earth means we get to see it in blocks; we have no sightings for weeks then we have a glut of sightings during a one week period.

This coming week it is visible every night, some nights it is actually visible twice in the one night. I have listed every sighting on my web page but the best nights are Tuesday 5th August at 10.55 coming from the North West and Thursday 7th August at 10.15 again from the North West. The sighting on Tuesday is quite late which means that the Sun will have been set for an hour and a half, so as the ISS gets directly overhead it will magically disappear as it enters the Earth’s shadow. The Thursday sighting is ¾ hour earlier which means that it will remain lit by the Sun all the way across the sky. The timings are crucial as you will only have about 4 minutes in which to see it cross the sky.

It will appear close to the horizon as a faint star moving up the sky, as it gets closer to you it will get brighter and brighter until it is directly over head when it will be less than 220 miles/354km above you. So remember to wave at the Astronauts as they pass by.

It is 40 years ago this month that the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered depicting life on an orbiting space station. Today many of the movies science fiction scenes and images have now become a reality with astronauts living and working in outer space. Even the shuttle that took the crew up to the movie’s space station is uncannily similar to the Space Shuttle used today, although the movie’s shuttle was owned by PanAm!

If you would like to watch the ISS from 2500 feet up you can join us at the top of Benelmadena Mountain every Monday, Wednesday & Friday during August where we will be using giant telescopes and lasers to show you the wonders of the night sky. Take the cable car up from Tivoli world, but remember to bring a jacket or jumper as it can sometimes get very cold after the sun sets

For more updated news on the Costa Del Stars go to www.kencampbell.info     

For more info about the Planetarium click here