Look up!

[andygates]

The 10th anniversary of the ISS led my, via some forum shenanigans and a big fat Jupiter, to Heavens-Above.com.  My inner spacefan is all a-squee over this: plug in your location and it'll work out locations and times for a whole raft of groovy phenomena, from a regular starfield (ah, so it was Venus and Jupiter that were big and bright tonight!) to the visible passes of the ISS and the Iridium sat-phone satellites (so bright they're visible in the day - next good one is Monday afternoon).

It almost makes me wish I had kids, so I could point up and say, "there's people in that!" -- and then take 'em to NASA's mission TV site so they could see them.  Mmm, science.

Comments

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

Dude. I've had that on my home page for years.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Sputniks!

Did you know they stuck a transmitter in an old space-suit and shoved it out the ISS airlock a while back? Suitnik!

[despaer.livejournal.com]

Well I haven't. I knew that it was Venus and Jupiter (too bright to be anything else) but that site is great 'cos I can now try and spot the ISS. Funnily enough, I was lying on the ground outside my garage holding my binoculars to try and stabilise Venus so I could see the phase (about half) at about 5:10 when Elaine and the kids reappeared so I could show the kids. Rather wish they had been 10 mins later as the ISS would have then gone overhead.

Still, there's always tomorrow if it doesn't fog over. Thanks for the link andy.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I thought you'd like it :)

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Ooh! On December 1st at 15:50 GMT, the Moon will pass directly in front of Venus - a pretty rare thing. Woot! :)

[shifty-176.livejournal.com]

I use the late Dave Ransom's STS Orbit Plus to track the shuttle (when it's up there) and ISS. There are still a few Amateur Radio sites that carry the code for download, but it runs under DOS (or DOSEMU under Linux). As well as doing the NASA world daylight map thing, it will show you an orthographic projection of the globe with tracks and visible footprints. If you have radio gear, it shows you the Doppler shifts so that you can have a listen, as well as showing pass predictions. If you pick up the Two-line elements for other satellites it will track those for you too (Hubble etc).