ISS flyovers tonight & tomorrow

Posted by Bret B on November 7, 2011, 4:57 pm
187.146.107.195

For all you sky-gazers, La Manzanilla will have a few good chances to see the International Space Station fly overhead in the next few days: 1. Tonight (Monday) around 7:40, 2. Tomorrow night (Tue) around 6:40, (There is also a good one next Wednesday Nov 16, but it's around 6:02AM.) Try practicing on the one tonight so you can be prepared for the better (brighter & higher) one tomorrow night. Here's how to see them (detailed times and directions are listed below): You'll need a viewing location without a lot of obstructions in the direction the ISS will be (see the details below). You need to know roughly which way is north/south/etc. beforehand. If you're in town, the downtown streets run close enough to N/S for this purpose. You need a clock accurate to a minute or better, since the flyovers only last 5-6 minutes. You can set your clock/watch to any satellite TV receiver or to an internet time service like http://www.time.gov/ (select Central time zone.) Be careful not to use the time shown at the top of the Message Board page, as it's currently off by an hour (presumably Daylight Saving Time problems.) If you need more details than I provide here, or want to see what other satellites are visible each night I highly recommend the Heavens Above site: http://www.heavens-above.com/?Lat=19.281&Lng=-104.788&Alt=4&Loc=La+Manzanilla%2C+MX&TZ=Mex (In the 1st line under Satellites, you'll see a link named "ISS".) Here is the link to just the ISS flyovers for La Manz: http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=19.281&lng=-104.788&loc=La+Manzanilla%2c+MX&alt=4&tz=Mex In these links I have already set the observer's latitude & longitude to the numbers for the Jardin here in La Manz. You can change the observer's location in the first link if you're somewhere else like Lake Chapala. (If you're in the US or Canada, you'll have your own good flyover days, but probably not these.) These numbers should work fine for most of the Costalegre, for the ISS flyovers anyway. (If you ever want to try to spot more advanced things like Iridium satellite "flares" you'll need your lat/long correct to a mile or better, and a clock accurate to 1 second or better (i.e an "atomic clock".) Contact me for help on seeing these.) So here's the detailed viewing instructions for these ISS flyovers: 1. Monday night: look low in the WNW (West-NorthWest, or a little west of northwest) about 7:39 for a star-like object moving steadily toward the SW as it gets higher and brighter. It will be at its highest apparent altitude (32 degrees) above the SW horizon about 7:42, then continue heading back down to the S horizon where it will disappear around 7:45. During this pass the ISS will get brighter than any star, but a little dimmer than Jupiter (the really bright planet high in the east in the evenings lately.) 2. Tuesday night (the good one!): ISS rises in the NW at 6:41, peaks high (72 degrees) in the NE at 6:45, then sets in the SE at 6:48. This time it will be the brightest thing in the sky except for the moon and Venus (low in the west in the evenings)-- even brighter than Jupiter! See the ISS link above if you'd like to try the pre-dawn flyovers (I don't get up that early myself!) It's really not as hard as I make it sound: just look for the only bright moving light in the right direction at the right time! But remember if you're a couple minutes late, you might miss it. Good luck! PS, if you're wondering how a satellite can be so bright, take look at how huge this thing has gotten: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station

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