PLANET AND SPACE STATION GAZING
In and around Cranbrook


PLANETS:

JUPITER: seen BRIGHT to the South East and Soth around 10pm: nicely visible even at 9.30pm. Jupiter is the giant planet of our Solar System and with even modest binoculars you can see some of it's innermost moons.

HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A STAR AND A PLANET.....

Stars Twinkle and planets dont! Its true....stars are tiny point sources of light to us and the light rays from them get bent around in the atmosphere (because of the different temperatures and densities in the air) and so they twinkle.
Planets are larger objects in the sky for us, so this effect makes hardly any difference to their brightness...they don't twinkle.

GOOD LINK

to check the night sky for when my page is out of date and I have forgotten to renew it! BBC CLICK HERE
and another excellent one is this: JODRELL BANK OBSERVATORY

DO YOU KNOW THE NAME OF OUR NEAREST STAR????????
(see the bottom of this page for the answer)


INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

The ISS can be seen easily with the naked eye if you know when/where to look. It appears like an brightish star which slowly moves across the sky and can take typically 1,2 or 3 minutes before it disappears. (no flashing lights so don't confuse it with an aeroplane).
The ISS usually disappears before it goes down over the horizon, this is because it passes into the Earth's shadow. (it is only about 400 km above the Earth's surface)
The ISS has an orbit such that for a period of a couple of weeks or so it is only visible in the early morning before sun-up. Then later it only appears in the evening.
To see the CURRENT SIGHTING TIMES FROM CRANBROOK CLICK HERE

Our nearest star is called "The Sun" - all stars are like the Sun but much further away.
The Sun is a boringly average star - there are millions bigger and hotter than the Sun.
A star is a massive Hydrogen bomb.
The outward force of the explosion is balanced by the inward force of gravity.
The Sun is pretty stable and is about half way through its lifetime with only about 1000 million years left!

IF YOU SEE A UFO

UFOTREK: UFO sightings recorded information line. Tel 0870 046 2270 (24 hours). Report a sighting on our automated answering service, after this weeks message. (Calls charged at normal national BT rate).

Contact us at geoffpiper@onetel.com