Have you ever seen a shooting star? It’s quite a spectacle, seeing a little piece of dust or rock burning a line across the night sky. If you’d like to see shooting stars (or perhaps even a much more impressive fireball!) without waiting for hours and hours, what you need is a meteor shower.
While you’re at it, why not take an amazing photo? With NightCap Pro you can photograph a meteor shower using your iPhone!
Meteor showers happen when a comet (or sometimes an asteroid) crosses the earth’s orbit around the sun. They leave behind a trail of dust and small bits of ice and rock, and each time the earth passes through this trail lots of these bits burn up in our atmosphere. Each time it happens, we see a shooting star.
There are many meteor showers throughout the year. There’s an excellent guide to viewing meteor showers including a good timetable at Meteorwatch.
When you’ve done so, we’re ready for the first challenge, stars! (more…)
Your guide to constellations, deep-sky objects, planets and events, Tonight’s Sky, Highlights of the December Sky (more…)
The International Space Station (ISS) is back over UK skies with some great evening passes during October 2014. Watch out for this bright delight in the autumn skies.
The ISS is the largest Space Station/ laboratory ever built, it can be spotted with the naked eye at certain times as it orbits Earth at 17500mph at an altitude of roughly 200 miles.
Spotting the station is very easy and you don’t need any special equipment. You only need your eyes!
Check out the Beginners Guide to Seeing the ISS to learn how easy it is to spot sailing over and the Beginners Guide to Photographing the International Space Station (ISS). (more…)
ISS Long Exposure photo of a visible ISS pass Credit: Mark Humpage
The International Space Station (ISS) is back over UK skies with some great passes during August 2014 and this month we have a special bonus with passes occurring during the Perseid Meteor Shower.
The ISS is the largest Space Station/ laboratory ever built orbiting the Earth, it can be spotted with the naked eye at certain times as it orbits the planet at 17500mph at an altitude of roughly 200 miles.
Spotting the station is very easy and you don’t need any special equipment, only your eyes. (more…)
