ISS skylab

[wildbri]

Now we have had some sunny days and clear nights the skylab can be seen on certain nights. If you look south it will appear from the west and move to the east, this only takes one minuet so you have to get the timing right. This link will help you track it in real time as it approaches the uk . regards bri


http://www.n2yo.com/?s=25544

 

[lacroupade]

You can see satellites all the time if your night sky isn't stuffed by town lighting. They are very different to aircraft lights once you know what you're looking for - tiny steady light that moves really high up at a speed thats too fast for any aircraft.

My neighbour in France is an amateur astronomer and has an obervatory in his garden with an expensive computer driven Meade telescope. I've seen some amazing stuff through it including a complete galaxy, which I never thought you'd see from the ground.

And I forget which one it is but one of the stars of the Plough is actually a double when you look through a high powered scope, then if you zoom in again, one of those two is itself a double star again.

But even a decent 20x bird scope will show you the moons of Jupiter on a clear night.

Usually too chilly here to do it but in France in summer we have no street or house lights visible at all and you can lie for hours on the old sun lounger with a bottle of plonk looking at the heavens.....but it makes your head hurt when you start pondering it all