Any Sky Watchers About?

[jeepnik]

Just wondering if there were any other sky watchers among the group. Just watched the ISS go over. Quite bright and watched it from over the Pacific Ocean to the Four Corners.

I'm also in a great position to watch a lot of the Vandenberg launches.

[GunnyMack]

I can remember camping under the stars out at Blue Lake in CA as a kid. No light pollution and the whole Milky Way was visible.
I saw the space shuttle one early morning from my tree stand.
As big as the ISS is it is easy to spot.
It never fails around here when one of the meteor showers is happening it's overcast!
Just humbling how small we are in the grand scheme of things!

[samsi]

I watched the ISS go over a few years back. After thinking that a couple passing satellites may have been it, it was very obvious when it came over - much larger, brighter and lower than all the other clutter.

When conditions are right I can see the Starlink launches from Vandenberg but generally forget to mark the calendar so miss most of them.

When they did the remote recovery of the Boeing Starliner capsule to White Sands we had a great view. The reentry angle was much shallower than I expected and was easy to spot due to the plasma tail.

[Paladin]

Yes, but my son has the Celestrom 5. I am left to Night Skies in the Rockies and Night Vision when not in Alaska. We get to see many satellites, but can't ID many of them.

[jeepnik]

There are several phone apps I've found useful. ISS Spotter shows when it will be passing overhead and lets you set alarms. NextSpaceFlight shows when launches will occur and again lets you alarms. SkyView can identify all of the "satellites", including all of the junk floating around up there. MeteorActive is just that it shows when meteor showers happen. And lastly Planets, if you see something and don't know what planet or star it is.

There are tons of other apps, but these are the one's I use most. Oh, and the NASA app has some good stuff.

[coyote nose]

You bet I am a skywatcher. It, not guns, have been my main hobby, since April of 1974. Have several telescopes but my main one is a 16" I ground myself and set up inside a roll off roof observatory.
Here is a photo of it with a MUCH younger me standing on a ladder at the eyepiece....probably should get on photoshop and make my hair gray now!!

DSC01697.5.jpg

Currently am making my very last instrument, an 18". Am getting a bit old to climb a ladder at midnight during a cold snowy winter night, figure I have maybe 5 or so years left using big instruments, then will have to sadly say goodbye to them and use smaller instruments off of my deck. Not complaining, its been a great 50+ year run and I have been very blessed during all of it.

[LeverGunner]

I have a passing interest in it. I like to see meteor showers the best.

A few years back there was a comet that went by, and my wife and I got a good look at that using my 10x binoculars. I don't have a telescope.

I saw the northern lights from my home here in Ky just a few weeks back. It was amazing. Never seen them before.

I've never seen the night sky without light pollution, but I sure would like to.

[samsi]

I found that 10x50 binoculars worked better than the spotting scope when that comet passed by, the big lens picked up too much ambient light and washed it out.

The spotting scope worked well the last time Saturn was really close (Sept '24?), could easily see the rings.

[jeepnik]

Even with a slight marine layer, last nights SpaceX launch was quite spectacular. I came up in the usual position but because it was going into a different LEO (this launch was for the NRO so not as much info as usual) it actually had the 1st stage separation closer than usual and just above the hill on the peninsula I live on. This meant the deceleration burn for the first stage was also closer, and more visible. Unlike most launches that use a recovery vessel at sea, this one was landing back at Vandenberg. All in all, quite good.

The ISS flyover the evening before wasn't quite so good. The darned marine layer clouds. Just a few seconds glimpse.