INTERACTIVE TIMEWASTER

I’m not sure why I never posted about this here before. It’s been around for years. Use it to impress your friends and family or to get a kid interested in science or math.

The site is called Heavens-Above. You can use it to observe bright satellites like the International Space Station and many others.

From the left side of the page click on “Change your observing location”. You will be able to drill right down to a single point anywhere on Earth (your location) and then click save if you’d like, or not, for you paranoid types. After that click on “ISS” and it will generate a table for any visible passes (overflights) of the International Space Station visible from your location. If no table is displayed try again in a few days.

If you know your constellations you can even print out a map that plots the pass across your sky along with pass details by clicking on the date.

Data on the table is displayed by:

Date: There can be multiple passes in a single day visible from the same place.

Brightness: The lower the number, the brighter the ISS will appear. Negative numbers are best.

There are then three broader columns labeled Start, Highest Point and End. Each of these is broken down by:

Time: When a pass first becomes visible is at its max altitude or ends. Shown in local military time.

Alt: This is altitude in degrees above the horizon. Ninety degreees is straight up, 45 degrees is half way to the horizon etc.

Az: This is shown as compass directions for where in the sky the pass will appear, peak and disappear.

Over the years I’ve seen some amazing events thanks to this site. One was the most number of humans in space at one time. I think it was 13 and involved seeing the Space Shuttle flying ahead of the Mir Space Station followed closely by a Soyuz capsule trailing behind as it was preparing to dock with Mir. All three ships had full crews on board and were flying in a single file line nearly overhead in the same small patch of sky.

I’ve used it to watch IRIDIUM flares during broad daylight (close to noon even). There is a constellation of IRIDIUM satellites orbiting the Earth and they are bright enough to be seen flashing brightly in our daytime skies. They are much more dramatic when seen at night though. Some of them cause you to see spots in your eyes like a camera flash going off.

Years back there was a CIA satellite that failed and was going to crash to Earth. Everyone claimed they didn’t know where it would land. My work involves making substrates that are used in the most sensitive infra-red detectors in the world. I started watching this satellite while its orbit decayed and TPTB came up with a plan. The satellite was dead and out of gas but it was apparently important enough not to allow it to de-orbit on its own because they decided to shoot it down.

I knew they would be shooting from a destroyer in the south pacific to intercept over Hawaii as the satellite moved from SW to NE. I assume this was so that any surviving debris would land at home rather than abroad or go into the eastern pacific. As luck would have it I was perfectly placed to see if the shoot down was successful. They had announced the shoot down time so I went out and watched the crippled ship sail over on its final orbit. Unfortunately I was too far north to see the actual hit but ninety minutes later it did not appear so I knew they got it. It was cool to know that our substrate was sensitive enough to pick out a cold, dead (black) object against the cold, dead black of space. If I remember right a spherical titanium fuel tank was found a short time later.

For many years I had an uncanny knack for spotting Russia’s Mir space station every time I went out at night even to just take out the trash. I’d look up and there she was.

Anyway, enjoy!