ISS To Become Second Brightest-Object In the Sky 243
Matt_dk writes "Move over, Morning Star. Once Canadarm2 helps install the fourth and final set of solar array wings to the International Space Station later this month, the Station will surpass Venus as the brightest object in the night sky, second only to the Moon. The Space Shuttle Discovery is set to deliver the power-generating solar panels and Starboard 6 (S6) truss segment to the ISS on the 125th mission in the Shuttle program, known as STS-119/15A (slated for launch on March 11)."
2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the ISS is bright and will be brighter.
This still doesn't rival the brightness of an Iridium flare.
Predictions of the ISS and Iridium flares are provided at http://www.heavens-above.com/ [heavens-above.com]
Then there have been comets and supernova that have been visible during daylight. Yea, I think the ISS is cool to observe, but don't call it 2nd brightest after the moon.
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Informative)
Plus, you know, THE SUN. (I know the summary was more specific, but the title was not.)
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Funny)
THE SUN
Flaming ball of fusion, you have thwarted my plans for the last time! You will rue the day!!!
shakes fist angrily at sun
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Burns, is that you?
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
So, it's the 4th brightest thing in the sky. After the sun. And the moon. And then Venus.
Re: (Score:2)
And, not to be a stickler, but aircraft. The lights from aircraft are probably brighter too.
That being said, I live in a pretty dense urban environment (read: lots of light pollution). When the new modifications are made, will I be able to see the ISS and identify it as such from the ground with the naked eye?
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
nice. I saw them pass by like that once, just after separation.
Last time I saw the ISS it had almost a golden color to it.
on a side note; a few years ago we got to see the orbiter coming in (i'm in south florida) and watched part of the big turn. sweet.
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was going to UCF, I had the shit scared out of my by a shuttle landing. Had just moved in to new apartment and bedroom had sliding glass door out to patio. When the shuttle passed overhead, the sonic boom rattled the hell out of it, like someone was trying to come. Being woken up so early (10:30 am) sucks!
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Funny)
...trying to come in.
Darn you non-editable replies.
Darn you to HECK!
Re: (Score:2)
I think that in this day and age, most slashdotters have saved up enough in allowance to buy LCD displays. I don't know if CRT or LCD glow makes a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! ...Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Funny)
From the summary:
From your comment:
Last I checked, and admittedly It's been almost 12 hours, the sun isn't visible in the sky at night...
Re: (Score:2)
From the rest of my comment
I mean, if it's a matter of not being able to read more than 5 words of a post without getting distracted, they have pills for that.
...although I guess for that to be effective, I should have mentioned that within the first 5 words :(
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, either way, it's wrong. The heading says, "Second Brightest-Object In the Sky," which is incorrect, because the Sun is the brightest object in the sky and the second-brightest is the Moon.
The summary says, "the brightest object in the night sky," which is incorrect, because that would be the Moon.
I know you're joking, but this is Slashdot, and I expect the jokes to be funny AND measurably correct.
Oblig attempt to one-up (Score:2)
What does Skyy vodka have to do with newspapers, and why did you mess up the spelling?
Re:Oblig (Score:5, Funny)
This must mean Rupert Murdock is some sort of universal force, as he binds the Sun to the Sky...
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, I know that it happened once... in like 2007, but still IT FUCKING HAPPENED!
Throw enough shit at the wall and eventually something's gotta stick, amirite?
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the ISS is bright and will be brighter.
This still doesn't rival the brightness of an Iridium flare.
Then there have been comets and supernova that have been visible during daylight. Yea, I think the ISS is cool to observe, but don't call it 2nd brightest after the moon.
Okay, but those supernova are long gone so while they were on top back then, they aren't relevant today. You could also make an argument that the flare's apparent brightness only lasts a couple seconds while the ISS is bright for the majority of its traversal. Doesn't change that the flare really is much brighter when it occurs, but on the other hand on a normal night I'm perfectly comfortable saying that Venus is the 2nd brightest object in the sky.
Either way, this is a dramatic increase in the brightness of ISS. On a clear night far away from cities, ISS is easy to see, but also easy to lose in the sea of stars of similar brightness*. To be sure that you'll find it, you have to know roughly when and where it will appear, and then look for the star that moves. If it becomes brighter than Venus, you won't need a schedule or even a dark sky to be able to easily see when it passes over.
* Okay WP says that its max magnitude is equal to that of Venus, but I've never seen ISS under those conditions then. If the upgraded ISS will only be brighter than Venus at maximum, then maybe it's not that big a change as I'm thinking.
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Insightful)
> This still doesn't rival the brightness of an Iridium flare.
Yes it does. It does already. You're comparing flare mags with standard mags. The ISS _does_ flare, and when it does it is much brighter than Iridium. Sadly, Mike Tyrrell's page is gone, but there was a collection of images there.
Maury
Re:2nd brightest? not quite. (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, Mike Tyrrell's page is gone
Is this [astrospider.com] not his site?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He's Headed to That Small Moon Over There (Score:5, Funny)
Move over, Morning Star. Once Canadarm2 helps install the fourth and final set of solar array wings to the International Space Station later this month, the Station will surpass Venus as the brightest object in the night sky, second only to the Moon.
That's no moon. It's the International Space Station.
Re:He's Headed to That Small Moon Over There (Score:4, Funny)
i find your lack of wit... disturbing
Gods Must Be Crazy? (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps they will select Three Wise Men to go on a pilgrimage toward the bright new star...
Number of UFO sightings? (Score:2)
Spiking in 3, 2, 1...
Re:Gods Must Be Crazy? (Score:4, Funny)
If you can't reach it, build a religion around it.
It doesn't matter for me (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in a city so the light pollution messes up any chances I have at looking at a starry sky. I have as a child always found it incomprehensible that people said that you couldn't count all the stars because I can surely do it where I live.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
you couldn't count all the stars
there are more stars than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
there are more stars than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.
That's what "they" want you to think. Those "stars" were all manufactured in a Hollywood studio, next to the faked moon landings.
Re: (Score:2)
that looks like a very expensive production ...
Re: (Score:2)
Oh wow, I've just had another one of those crazy religious flashback flashback flashbacks (/GTA reference).
Back in my stupider days (okay, there was a girl involved, but I digress) I was attending religious meetings that discussed idiotic things like bible numerics or whatever it's called.
I talked to the leader of the meeting, a pastor if memory serves, and I asked him on the stance they/the bible all took on the subject of other alien intelligences (I likely used the phrase UFOs, but the meaning was there)
Re:It doesn't matter for me (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
the grains of sand on the beaches of earth are countable, in theory at least ...
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the number of stars must be finite and thus must be countable.
Assumption 1: there was a Big Bang. 2: The speed of light in a vacuum (c) is a hard limit on a mass's velocity. 3: a star has non-zero mass and non-zero positive volume.
The MAXIMUM radius of the universe can be calculated from c multiplied by the time since the Big Bang. Th
Re:It doesn't matter for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Even growing up in a small town I didn't really comprehend how many stars there were until we went camping. We were in Dinosaur Provincial Park and once it got dark it was amazing. With almost no nearby light pollution, you can clearly see an arm of the milky way overhead. Even without that arm, there are too many stars to count.
Re: (Score:2)
I live in a city so the light pollution messes up any chances I have at looking at a starry sky.
I live in the suburbs. Fortunately for me, the light pollution isn't bad enough to make star gazing difficult. I've recently become interested in astronomy. Thanks to Stellarium, I can easily pick out Venus in the night's sky, and am working on other stars and planets.
However, I live in the flight path of a nearby airport. How can I tell the difference between ISS, and a passing plane?
Re:It doesn't matter for me (Score:5, Funny)
"However, I live in the flight path of a nearby airport. How can I tell the difference between ISS, and a passing plane?"
If you fire a stinger at it and it hits, it's most certainly a plain. If it misses, it's probably the ISS.
Works for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Planes will have navigation strobes on (they blink), though if you're looking right at the landing lights they can be hard to see sometimes. Satellites will be steady, not blinking, and not changing course. You also won't ever see one flying east-to-west. West-to-east and north-south either way, but not east-west.
Darkness (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
My dad grew up in the middle-of-nowhere, Idaho
I bet addressing and delivering mail to him was a pain in the butt.
Re: (Score:2)
Really you don't have to live in the middle of nowhere. I live in Houston and have seen ISS fly overs more than once with the naked eye (at night).
I live in the suburbs of Glasgow, and despite the hideously inefficient street lighting (the sky gets more light than the ground) the ISS is very very easy to spot - at the moment it's nearly as bright as Venus when it comes past.
You can use http://www.heavens-above.com [heavens-above.com] to predict visible passes. Don't forget that there are lots of passes where you don't see i
Reminds me of a song... (Score:2)
"I saw two shooting stars last night,
I wished on them but they were only satellites.
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?"
--Billy Brag "A New England"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Depends on the wish.
"I wish I could triangulate my position on the planet surface to within 3 meters with only a handheld telemetry device."
"I wish for a mass extinction of species on the planet and a sudden solution to global warming."
Re:Reminds me of a song... (Score:5, Funny)
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Ah crap, it's a satellite.
bright enough to see in daylight? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the ISS does turn out to be brighter than Venus - which varies in brightness considerably, depending on where in it's orbit it is - relative to earth, then it will be interesting to see if it's visible during daytime passes, too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The only problem is that ISS isn't stationary, so you have to know where to look and at the right time as well!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen the ISS during the day, and that was back in 2002 or so. It was pretty close to sunset, and it was awfully bright, Venus-like, even, when it went by overhead. That said, maybe I just saw something else that I *thought* was the ISS. I've seen satellites before, though, and this looked like one, just way brighter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Venus is quite easy to see during the day if you know where to look and use binoculars. Stand in a shadow, so you don't accidentally look at the sun and fry your eyes.
It's a little tricky with the naked eye, but if you've found it with binoculars first, it's easy. It's actually easier if there are a few clouds nearby. If the sky is clear blue, your eyes don't know what to focus on, so Venus is likely too blurry to see.
When Shoemaker-Levy was landing on Jupiter, I managed to see Jupiter in daylight in a s
Which country? (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone know which country the Canadarm2 is from? /ducks
Re: (Score:2)
In the West, you make jokes about Canada.
In Soviet space, no one can hear you scream!
Re:Which country? (Score:5, Funny)
Like most things in Canada.
Signed, a proud Canadian.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You mean like the small Canada flags that people buy on july 1st?
Re: (Score:2)
So really - back off, get your own robot space arms! : ) Cool, thanks, eh?
A bit of canadian history - in the late 50s, Canada had developed the world's most advanced jet interceptor (the Avro Arrow). When it was cancelled in 1958, almost every
It'll become the brightest of all... (Score:2)
... when it springs another gas leak and blows up.
How ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't it ironic that the parts of the ISS that are meant to absorb as much sunlight as they can, actually reflect enough of it to make the ISS the seconds brightest object in the sky:P
Re:How ironic (Score:4, Funny)
Who would've thought, it figures...
Re:How ironic (Score:4, Interesting)
How much power are the panels producing? (Score:2)
Future Past (Score:2)
One of my strongest childhood memories is of watching the Echo [wikipedia.org] satellite go overhead from my grandmother's backyard during a summer family barbecue, probably sometime between 1966 to 1968 (though it had been launched in 1960). Everyone was aware it would be coming overhead so we were all waiting for it -- they must have announced it in the paper or something for our area. It seemed a very bright star and passed
Re: (Score:2)
I do feel sad for today's generation, I don't think they ever get the sense of the fantastic we experienced so often in the 60s and 70s from our space program.
Are you kidding? We only have two robots wandering around Mars for the past several years, a space telescope, multiple missions to other planets, comets, and a host of other missions I can't even list. You're trying to tell me that pales in comparison to what amounts to little more than a giant balloon in orbit? It seems to me it's easier for a 10
Viewing schedule on Heavens Above (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the Station will surpass Venus as the brightest object in the night sky,
Is the sun so obvious that they don't even see it?
Ummm... Since when is the sun in the *night* sky??
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Earth rotation axis FAIL!"
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
How often do you see the sun in the night sky?
Re:Second only to the Moon? (Score:5, Funny)
He lives in Alaska, you insensitive clod!
Re: (Score:2)
And that's where you stopped reading?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:5, Funny)
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:4, Insightful)
Well this explains why they shot JFK.
But what I don't understand is why there are phases of the moon. Is that a bug in the programming?
Re: (Score:2)
And that longer-lasting, energy efficient bulbs are being passed out to the public for beta-testing to reduce moon outages?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's because they burn out. They're just cycled through to give the illusion of realism, and to prevent heat buildup. If the moon was on all the time, it would get very hot and the power bill would be very expensive.
Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:4, Funny)
Are you nuts? Less than a minute googling 'history of the moon' will give you hundreds of references to it pre 1950.
And for the sake of argument, let's say all of those references were fabricated by historians. Then how do you explain the tides? Menstrual cycles? Even fish are more likely to bite on certain weeks, and it all has to do with lunar cycles. You don't really think that all of the above is recent to the past 60 years, do you?
Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:5, Funny)
Either someone just got trolled, or I just got reverse-trolled.
It's getting harder and harder to tell these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Given that you replied to an anonymous coward, I think in this case you got reverse-trolled.
Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:5, Funny)
Are you nuts? Less than a minute googling 'history of the moon' will give you hundreds of references to it pre 1950.
uh the internet wasnt around in 1950 genius
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
History is a lie. The planet wasn't here sixty years ago.
Ha! Stick that in your tinfoil hat and... smoke... it... [metaphor mixture fail: abort, retry, ignore?] [[ignore]]
Re:The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Wait a minute, you're telling me that they have orbital gun-control satellites?
I suppose I've been planning for the wrong apocalypse entirely.
Re: (Score:2)
And if it's actually original, you should apply for a job at The Onion.
I call your bluff (Score:2)
Here [gutenberg.org] is a pre-1950 reference to the Moon. And you can easily check its veracity. The moon is close enough that a cannon shot can reach it. So, all you need to do to check if this is true or not is to tie yourself to a cannonball and shoot to the moon. Happy landing... er moonings [google.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Do you really think these things have been happening for 60 years, and are caused by a giant man made weather balloon?
Yes. That you would argue otherwise simply reveals your LIEBRAL nature.
Re: (Score:2)
That publication is from the 1970s [wikipedia.org].
Oh, and:
God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
Gen 1:16
Re:Moon? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, in order to combat global warming, they intend to turn off the sun.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can actually see the sun in the NIGHT sky? You must have pretty good eyes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.n2yo.com/ [n2yo.com] is a little more interesting, unless you have problems with Google Maps.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the ISS doesn't flare.
Oh wait, it does.