Is Hubble ever visible from the UK

[ianm2k4]

As per title.. As we can see the ISS on a regular basis... Just wondered 

[Davey-T]

No too far South ? I think.

Dave

[Steve Ward]

Not easily naked eye but easy in bino ...

Check out Calsky or Heavens Above for details ... http://www.calsky.com/cs.cgi/Satellites?obs=61049659464424 ... http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=20580&lat=52.30019&lng=0.4925&loc=H.Q.&alt=0&tz=GMT

Should be on Stellarium too.

But not from above about 28 degrees N.

[ronin]

Looks like the orbit sits about the 2 tropic latitudes, it is at 28.5 inclination. So it will at some time pass over Southern Algeria I suspect, but Hubble is in a low orbit so probably remains below the horizon here.

I will say to dig out all the data you can as in many instances "the horizon" is often sort of +10 degrees and not 0. Meaning that if it scrapped in at 3 degrees above then many sites will say it does not rise sufficent. However I doubt it, as no-one has ever mentioned Hubble scraping into view  for anyone south enough to have a chance.

However Heavens Above has a "horizon" of 10 degrees and Stellarium seems to be higher. I was looking for a red star I had seen and Stellarium indicated Betelgeuse was just above the horizon, whereas what I could see was Betelgeuese and was above the roof line of the houses opposite. An easy 20 degrees.

Not sure how far south you would need to go to get it in view easily, but the place and the orbital path would need to match up.

[hgjevans]

Taking the earth's radius as about 6370km, and Hubble's altitude as about 545km, the back of my envelope says that you'd need to be no more than about 23° further north than its most northerly pass for it to just scrape above the southern horizon. So in the UK that would mean you'd pretty much have to be on the south coast looking out over the English Channel, and even then you'd have only the briefest of windows. Just a few degrees further south would make a big difference to the geometry though.

[Cath]

No I don't think so

[Starlight 1]

This was a good post on Hubble.

Can we see Hubble?

Rate Topic  

Started by DazC, Mar 26 2015 09:25 PM