ASTRONOMY UPDATE (15 March 2009)

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Dennis Mammana

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Mar 15, 2009, 7:46:52 PM3/15/09

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01) Space Station and Shuttle visible this week at dusk

02) ISS Webcam now operating

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01) Space Station and Shuttle visible this week at dusk

With the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-119) now on its way to the International Space Station (ISS), the pair will make several very bright passes over Southern California tonight (Sunday), tomorrow and Tuesday during evening twilight hours. The brightest pass will occur on Monday night, with the pair passing from southwest to northeast from about 7:15 p.m. to about 7:21 p.m. PDT. At its highest it will appear about 60 degrees above the northwestern horizon.

To find exact times and directions for your area, visit: http://www.heavens-above.com. I recommend free registration so you can visit from time to time and keep your location on file. Here you can select your town from a database or add your own latitude and longitude. Once in the site, scroll down to "Satellites" and then click "ISS".

The shuttle will dock with ISS at 2:13 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, March 17, so viewers on Monday night will see two satellites flying together. Those viewing Tuesday night will see only one satellite. Unfortunately, STS will undock from ISS before the pair become visible from Southern California again.

Once the astronauts have installed the new solar panels, ISS will become the second brightest object in the night sky, right after the moon. Venus will move to third place!

To learn more about Discovery’s mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

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02) ISS Webcam now operating

If you aren’t able to watch ISS go over your area—or even if you are—you might be interested in keeping an eye on activities onboard the orbiting station via a new webcam.

The streaming video views of Earth and the exterior structure of the station are from cameras mounted outside the laboratory complex, orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour at an altitude of 220 miles. The video is transmitted to the ground—and Web viewers—primarily while the astronauts aboard the complex are asleep, usually from about 11 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. PDT.  When live feeds are not available, a map showing the current location and path of the station will be streamed from NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

The streaming video will include audio of communications between Mission Control and the astronauts, when available. When the space shuttle is docked to the station, the stream will include video and audio of those activities.

To learn more about it and how to watch, visit:  http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/10/live-from-space-streaming-webcam-now-available/

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