Space station fly-by
IT’S almost the size of two football fields, it’s travelling at 28,000km/h and its coming to the night skies of Far North Queensland all this week.
Heralded as the greatest space achievement since NASA landed a man on the Moon in 1969, the International Space Station (ISS) will be visible to budding astronomers for between two and four minutes each night until Sunday.
The space station looks like an aeroplane or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesn’t have flashing lights or changes direction. It will also be moving considerably faster than a typical aeroplane, moving at 900km/h.
Its elevation is measured in degrees and represents the height of the space station from the horizon in the night sky. The horizon is at zero degrees, and directly overhead is 90 degrees. If you hold your fist at arm’s length and rest your fist on the horizon the top is about 10 degrees.
Saturday, at 4.59am, will be the best time to check in the ISS when it appears for four minutes, at 10 degrees above the horizon in the NNW sky. It will reach a maximum height of 55 degrees before disappearing at 39 degrees above the horizon in the ESE sky.
For shutterbugs hoping to capture a long exposure of the ISS, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday will be the best nights as the station will be close to the horizon and will appear as a relatively horizontal streak of light.
The ISS will look a brilliant white colour and suddenly turn orange as it passes into Earth’s shadow and disappears from view.
The ISS is very easy to photograph, all you need is a camera capable of taking long exposures and a tripod.
During a three to four minute pass photographers will have a few chances at a 30 second exposure.