Space viewing highlights from 15 May - including a rare Soyuz challenge

Gungahlin Al said :

yellowsnow said :

poetix said :

I do hope someone will post a photo. My chances of remembering AND finding a direction in less than an hour are non-existent. (It was an embarrassed smile Al, not a joke.)

+1.

I’ve forgotten to go out and have a look every night this week, despite making a mental note to do it. D’oh!

Yeah I am hopeless on the mental note thing too. Set an alarm in your smartphone. Go out and fire up the compass app. Laughing. Assuming you are part of the 50+% of Australians who have switched from dumbphones? Other than that and the general direction where the sun went down and left a bit, I’m not sure how else I can point you the right way. Perhaps this – towards the Brindabella Mountains?

I was pretty disappointed with yesterday’s pass – quite faint and drowned out by ambient light. Light pollution in Canberra is really shocking – particularly in our newer suburbs.
(If I achieve nothing else during this ACT election campaign, it will be to draw attention to the light pollution problem and get something done about the streetlights that LDA and TaMS are installing/requiring. Not to mention the crazy waste of electricity/$$ lighting the sky for no good reason…)

Next big thing in the night sky is the transit of Venus. So book a day off on Wednesday 6 June. First touches at 08:16, finishes at 14:44. Get some eclipse glasses for $4 from http://iceinspace.com.au or http://ozscopes.com.au or just knock up a quick pinhole observer: http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/how.html

Thank you. That’s very kind. It must be hard for some people to imagine the life of a person whose mind closes down at a table of numbers. Especially when they refer to directions. Pity the innumerates. (I’m not saying you are innumerate, yellowsnow, but I most certainly am.)

yellowsnow said :

poetix said :

I do hope someone will post a photo. My chances of remembering AND finding a direction in less than an hour are non-existent. (It was an embarrassed smile Al, not a joke.)

+1.

I’ve forgotten to go out and have a look every night this week, despite making a mental note to do it. D’oh!

Yeah I am hopeless on the mental note thing too. Set an alarm in your smartphone. Go out and fire up the compass app. Laughing. Assuming you are part of the 50+% of Australians who have switched from dumbphones? Other than that and the general direction where the sun went down and left a bit, I’m not sure how else I can point you the right way. Perhaps this – towards the Brindabella Mountains?

I was pretty disappointed with yesterday’s pass – quite faint and drowned out by ambient light. Light pollution in Canberra is really shocking – particularly in our newer suburbs.
(If I achieve nothing else during this ACT election campaign, it will be to draw attention to the light pollution problem and get something done about the streetlights that LDA and TaMS are installing/requiring. Not to mention the crazy waste of electricity/$$ lighting the sky for no good reason…)

Next big thing in the night sky is the transit of Venus. So book a day off on Wednesday 6 June. First touches at 08:16, finishes at 14:44. Get some eclipse glasses for $4 from http://iceinspace.com.au or http://ozscopes.com.au or just knock up a quick pinhole observer: http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/how.html

poetix said :

I do hope someone will post a photo. My chances of remembering AND finding a direction in less than an hour are non-existent. (It was an embarrassed smile Al, not a joke.)

+1.

I’ve forgotten to go out and have a look every night this week, despite making a mental note to do it. D’oh!

I do hope someone will post a photo. My chances of remembering AND finding a direction in less than an hour are non-existent. (It was an embarrassed smile Al, not a joke.)

Good view of it tonight!

Quick reminder about the Space Station viewing opportunity tonight:
-1.0 18:13:58 10° WSW 18:16:21 18° SSW 18:18:32 11° SSE
Soyuz docked about 20 minutes ago so the two will cross together.
Twitter users can get personalised updates and reminders of these crosses by following @twisst

And thanks for the feedback on last night. It was a beautiful bright crossing – sliced straight through the Southern Cross. Could not find Soyuz during it’s crossing though. Was laying in the middle of the Harrison Sports Fields to try get away from light pollution, but to no avail – too much light spill from streetlights on steroids.

PS: forget what I said yesterday on the annular eclipse – after more checking realised it is northern hemisphere visible only. But the transit of Venus is coming soon, and my camera-to-telescope adapter and solar filter film for the telescope arrived this morning…

Yes thanks for the heads up Al. Took the kids to Mt Ainslie tonight to watch the ISS and it was very good!

Thanks Al!

Oh – and the latest prediction has the Soyux pass one minute earlier now – 6:08.
Lastly – did you notice that both the ISS and Soyuz tomorrow are at the same time and start location? Yep – it will have almost caught up. Now there’s a photo op…

Vegemite said :

I didn’t see anything last night but it was definitely cloudy down south. So am I reading it correctly that tonight it will be SW so if I am in Gungahlin looking towards the town centre, just above the horizon it should appear?

Really not sure what way you are pointing…! Just fire up the compass app on your phone. Or – as I said yesterday – face the setting sun and turn 45 degrees to your left. That is SW. Or near enough for the purpose.

Deref: sure will try as I can fit things in. Or you can subscribe to or get the RSS feed from my blog. Or that autoposts to my Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts. There’s a few options… 🙂

Now – about the SpaceX Dragon launch to the ISS on Saturday night. And the “Ring of Fire” full solar eclipse on Sunday… So much happening this week in space geekdom…

Get a little out of the town centre away from lights if you can. Although Monday night demonstrated that slap bang in the middle of Civic was bright as.