2 ways to impress the crowd at a Starparty!

[Kasun Somaratne]

If you are into stargazing this site is a must know. heavens-above.com gives you pretty much everything you need to know about those mysterious slow moving stars that you might come across if you stare at the sky for just as little as 5 minutes. After you have created an account with your location on Earth it will tell you when you could see ISS, Hubble, Iridium flares, other major satellites, and occasionally the space shuttle when it is in orbit. What's more it even tells you when you could view that ISS toolbag that was accidentally put in orbit.

I usually go to this site before I go out and observe just to see what other cool things would happen when I'm staring at the stars. Iridium flares are my favorites. These sudden flaring of bright stars in the sky are caused by iridium satellites that were put in orbit for communication purposes. Each of these satellites has three antennas that are very reflective. Sometimes these antennas are in such a orientation that they directly reflect sunlight towards you. The result: They suddenly become very bright in the sky for a short period (seconds), brighter than most stars (sometimes about magnitude -9). The website keeps track of the orientation of these satellites and will tell you exactly when and where you could see these. Cool huh! They are very good to impress people who don't know what they are. Once I saw a flare which blinked several times. I was really amazed by this and later found out that it was because the satellite was spinning on it's axis (most probably a broken one). So if you see any bright stars suddenly come to life chances are you probably saw one of these rather than a supernova.

The other most interesting thing is the ISS. It is the brightest satellite out there. So bright you can't miss it. On June 13 space shuttle Endeavor (STS 127) is scheduled to launch for the space station. If you get a chance to see ISS after this date and before it docks to the space station, you would see Endeavor following close behind ISS as it prepares to dock. It's quite a sight. If you got a chance to see it keep in mind that two Canadian astronauts Robert Thirsk (ISS) and Julie Payette (Endeavor) will also be there.