The ISS Alpha and the comet SWAN above you on the sky!

There is an extraordinary chance to observe two interesting objects on autumn sky this week. Since the early night hours is the SWAN comet observable (this comet has raised its magnitude to 4,7 in past few days) between constellations of Hercules and Corona Borealis With clear sky, the comet is observable by a naked eye as misty cloud below cca 30˚ above the horizon (see the map at astronomie.cz). We were watching it after the astronomy lesson yesterday and I can confirm that it is brighter than last week. And if that was an nice experience for several next years, it was even better and stronger experience yesterday :)

The second bright object on early night sky which can be observer with naked eye is the international space station ISS Alpha. While the comet is observable until its dawn around the midnight, the ISS is observable only for a few minutes and then it disappears behind the shadow of our planet (it moves by the speed of 8km/s and the flight around the planet takes 90 minutes). You will be able to see it on the background of starry sky as a bright moving point flying from the west to east-north-east. Which constellations it will pass depends only on your position above/below the predicted track. Yesterday, the ISS appeared over observatory in Ostrava at 19:15 and the only thing I missed to be absolutely happy were binoculars to zoom in.

If you want to watch ISS too, I recommend you http://www.heavens-above.com site, where you can get actual data and predictions for future passes. The only thing you have to do is to set in what(or near of what) city you are and weekly prediction is yours :) . ISS usually passes from west through the Hercules, Cygnus and Andromeda to Triangle constellation (this week in Central Europe).

Besides ISS also passes of another satellites can be predicted, e.g. communication satellites Iridium which flashes the light down to the earth when they are in proper position to sun. It then looks like there was a moving star that raises and reduces its brightness in short time and then disappears totally. Yesterday we observed three but only one was predicted by heavens-above.com.

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