Moon Rise Sparks Skywatching

Clearer skies are tonight expected to allow an unusually clear glimpse of the features of the moon and allow people to witness the moonscape in detail.

The clearest places are likely to be over east Antrim and much of Down and Armagh.

Skywatchers will see the craters on the moon, but may not be able to see the mountains.

Meanwhile, while the International Space Station (ISS) won't have any visible passes tonight, there will be several other items of low orbit satellites that can be seem with the naked eye.

One of these is the rocket body from the Cosmos 1733 launch of February 20, 1986.

Orbiting the earth at around 600Km above the surface, this piece of space junk is just one of dozens that can be seen from earth when observers stay away from brighter lights that otherwise 'pollute' the night sky.

It will appear low on the horizon at 10° just after 7pm tonight (viewed from north of Belfast), reach 67° to the east four minutes later before dropping again below the horizon in the south at 7.10pm.

Such objects refract the light from the setting sun and appear to 'naked eye' observers as a very bright light that rapidly traverse the sky.

The only manned object in earth orbit - the ISS - can regularly be seen racing from west to east when the skies are clear enough, and after skywatchers consult the relevant (free) website.

On occasion, when the conditions are right, even the soon-to-be-scrapped Space Shuttles are in view too, when they are ferrying supplies and replacement crews to the orbiting platform.

However, when the last shuttle is scrapped later this year, conventional (Russian) rockets will be used instead, with the debris from discarded rocket stages adding further to the evening display of orbiting scrap.

This month's Shuttle trip to the ISS, Mission STS-133, has now seen the reusable spacecraft Discovery arrive safely back on earth for the last time.

The next Shuttle mission will be STS-134, currently scheduled for April 19th and when it returns, these innovative spaceships will no longer take to the skies.

See: www.heavens-above.com

(BMcC/KMcA)