link to advice for spotting satellites

[robot_roo]

Could anyone point me in the right direction for tips on spotting satellites, my son is very interested in this and I cant seem to find a good site.

[ashenlight]

Hi RR - sign up for an account (it is free) on Heavens-Above Home Page

It will give you predictions for sats, ISS, shuttles, iridium flares for your location. Very useful and always accurate.

[Mikea]

Heavens above is the only one I know - good for ISS passes. Not sure about other satellites.

[astro_dt]

Hi there

Try Heavens Above Heavens-Above Home Page

Cheers

Danny

[Mikea]

I reckon we all typed that at the same time, but Amanda pressed the "post" button first!

[ashenlight]

at the risk of sounding pedantic, I was two minutes earlier we all obviously know a good site for sats...

[jerryab51]

i use wxtrack it is a great program also as is heavens above.

i saw 2 this past week cross in my telescope eyepiece

i caught them by accident of course and they were moving fast

i track the shuttle when it is up and iss all the time

good luck

[proflight2000]

One really nice and clever way to view satellites with your son is to do the following if you can. Get a couple of garden chairs, the ones that fold right down so you can lay there looking at the sky. Obviously a good clear night is needed. But go otside with a couple of blankets so you do not get cold, then just lay there looking into the night sky.

You will see a lot, anything with flashing green and red lights forget as they will be aircraft, but count over an hour how many things you see cross the sky, you may if your lucky see some very odd things appear and disappear, but it is good fun. Get used to spotting things, then note down times, direction of travel etc, then look them up in heavens above, it is like a reverse learning process. Hope that helps.

[saturn5]

You can give this one a try,I get emails teling me when bright iridiums,ISS & Shuttle passes,meteor showers,aurora alerts, etc are due.You get them 24hrs in advance of the event.

http://www.calsky.com/

[Paul.L]

Starry Night program shows the satellites so he'd know where to look at what time.

[jgs001]

Heavens above is good, but seems to only show current active satellites, so things like test and standby Iridiums don't show. This means that you might miss out on forecast double flares etc, when there is on active and one test. Two other options

calsky.com as already mentioned, and orbitron (pc application) you can use this to print out forecasts.

[astro_dt]

You can give this one a try,I get emails teling me when bright iridiums,ISS & Shuttle passes,meteor showers,aurora alerts, etc are due.You get them 24hrs in advance of the event.

http://www.calsky.com/

Nice site!

Thanks

Danny