Good view of ISS from here tonight.

Of those, i don't like the "plastic telescopes" much. For mine, you'd be better off with a Philips
[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Planisphere-Northern-Degrees-Astronomy/dp/054008817X/ref=pd_cp_ce_2Planisphere[/url and a red LED torch.

The Celestron Sky Scout OTOH is an amazing piece of kit. I have never tried one but it has had great reviews and being "point and shoot" GPS based, is as foolproof as I suppose it gets for a budget. Cheap it ain't, (£175 or so minimum) but I reckon not that dear for what it is.

Good view of ISS from here tonight.

Of those, i don't like the "plastic telescopes" much. For mine, you'd be better off with a Philips
[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Planisphere-Northern-Degrees-Astronomy/dp/054008817X/ref=pd_cp_ce_2Planisphere[/url and a red LED torch.

The Celestron Sky Scout OTOH is an amazing piece of kit. I have never tried one but it has had great reviews and being "point and shoot" GPS based, is as foolproof as I suppose it gets for a budget. Cheap it ain't, (£175 or so minimum) but I reckon not that dear for what it is.

In terms of ISS watching, I tend to use this website for viewing times etc. :

spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/si ... on=England

It also gives details of the additional resupply / shift change missions etc.

As long as you know your compass, such as roughly what direction North is from where you are standing, then the rest is fairly easy to work out and especially if you pick observation nights where ISS is visable over the horizon for 3-4 minutes.

It is that bright (well brighter than any star in the sky) then as long as the night is clear and you're broadly looking in the right direction, then there's usually no problems seeing it.

As for the bright 'star', given its prominence in the night sky at the moment, could the object be Jupiter ? Other than the Moon, is this is about the brightest natural object visable at the moment and has in the days leading up to Christmas been in the same part of the sky as the Moon.

PS - I hold a GCSE in Astronomy, if that counts ?

In terms of ISS watching, I tend to use this website for viewing times etc. :

spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/si ... on=England

It also gives details of the additional resupply / shift change missions etc.

As long as you know your compass, such as roughly what direction North is from where you are standing, then the rest is fairly easy to work out and especially if you pick observation nights where ISS is visable over the horizon for 3-4 minutes.

It is that bright (well brighter than any star in the sky) then as long as the night is clear and you're broadly looking in the right direction, then there's usually no problems seeing it.

As for the bright 'star', given its prominence in the night sky at the moment, could the object be Jupiter ? Other than the Moon, is this is about the brightest natural object visable at the moment and has in the days leading up to Christmas been in the same part of the sky as the Moon.

PS - I hold a GCSE in Astronomy, if that counts ?

The site is good for info such as that, but [urlhttp://www.heavens-above.com[/url is far better for the purpose of watching satellites. The killer feature is if you register and create your actual location, you can print out a sky map showing the path the ISS (for example) will take; and you can print out star charts for fainter targets.


No, Jupiter is in the south, SE to SW. I thought we'd established the low bright thing in the NW/N late night was definitely Vega!

The site is good for info such as that, but [urlhttp://www.heavens-above.com[/url is far better for the purpose of watching satellites. The killer feature is if you register and create your actual location, you can print out a sky map showing the path the ISS (for example) will take; and you can print out star charts for fainter targets.


No, Jupiter is in the south, SE to SW. I thought we'd established the low bright thing in the NW/N late night was definitely Vega!