Tuesday, September 20, 2011

UARS. Where in the world is it?

You can watch it being tracked at heavens-above.  Oh, and by the way, that website is also a great place to track satellites, the space station, comets and all other sorts of space-related things.

If you want to freak out your friends, find the day and time of the brightest ISS flyover or any other satellite.  Then at the appointed time, let them know that you have a premonition of a streaking star in the sky at a certain location and time, and drag them outside to witness the powers of your psychic mind.



And by the way, on the 23rd - the predicted day of UARS' imminent demise, it WILL pass over the Pacific Northwest twice. Here's one of the tracks.

UPDATE NOTE: This track (above) changed since last entry, because it is a direct link to a server-generated image.  If you pinpoint your coordinates on the website's map, you can find a list of flyovers over the next 10 days -- of course the UARS will cease to exist in just a couple of days.

Here's the current flyover schedule near Portland, subject to change as it enters the atmosphere.

Date Mag Starts Max. altitude Ends
Time Alt. Time Alt. Time Alt.
9/21 3.0 03:30:26 10n 03:31:05 11nne 03:31:44 10ne
9/21 -0.5 05:01:02 10wnw 05:02:53 43sw 05:04:43 10sse
9/22 -0.8 04:34:46 10wnw 04:36:31 47sw 04:38:17 10se
9/22 0.6 21:56:11 10wnw 21:57:42 32nw 21:59:14 10nne

You can either go here to the page dedicated to tracking the UARS' path, or you can stare at the image below.



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