macpuzlBy Chuck Macpuzl
The International Space Station will be making some good visible passes through Santa Barbara’s evening skies during the last half of November. Its orbit may change from time to time, so to get the latest and most complete predictions, visit Heavens Above.
On Sunday, November 15, the space station will make a very brief pop up low in the SSW at 7:06 PM PST, below Jupiter and Saturn.
On Monday, it will appear in the S at 6:18 PM and pass low over our ocean horizon to disappear in the SSE at 6:20 PM, about midway between Fomalhaut and Deneb Kaitos.
Tuesday’s first pass will start at 5:32 PM in the SSE, passing very low through Grus, the Crane and across much of Cetus, the Sea Monster before fading out in the E, below Mars, at 5:35 PM. On its next orbit, it will briefly appear in the WSW at 7:07 PM, near the setting Moon, and climb 21 degrees into Aquila, the Eagle, before vanishing in our shadow at 7:08 PM.
Wednesday’s pass will be the best and brightest of this sequence, rising at 6:19 PM in the SW near the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn, then cruising nearly overhead before entering the Earth’s shadow while still 63 degrees up at 6:22 PM in the NE.
Thursday will have two ISS appearances. The first will start at 5:31 PM in the SSW near the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn, pass above Mars, and end at 5:37 PM in the ENE between Atik, a foot of Perseus, and the Pleiades star cluster. It will pop up again briefly in the WNW at 7:09 PM and disappear in the Keystone of Hercules.
On Friday, November 20, the station will rise in the W at 6:20 PM, and pass low through Ophiuchus, by the Keystone, across Draco, the Dragon, and set in the N at 6:24 PM after passing Pherkad and Kochab, the Guardians of the Pole at the opposite end of the Little Dipper from Polaris.
On Saturday, it will make a bright pass starting at 5:32 PM in the WSW, and follow a higher and longer version of Friday’s pass, ending near bright Capella on the NE horizon at 5:38 PM.
Sunday’s pass will be very low over our mountains, starting at 6:23 PM in the NW, and ending at 6:26 PM in the N.
Monday’s pass will be a higher, longer version of Sunday’s track, starting in the W at 5:34 PM, and ending in the NNE at 5:39 PM.
The ISS will be back for us in the first week of December.
Keep your eye on Saturn and Jupiter all month as they converge toward a spectacular conjunction low in the sunset near Winter Solstice in December. Saturn and Jupiter will be only about a tenth of a degree apart, and a typical telescope view will show both at the same time, along with the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and a couple of Saturn’s 82 moons.
The Leonid meteor shower peaks at 4 AM on November 17 with no interference from the Moon, though now it is a relatively sparse shower compared to its extravagant performances near the turn of the millennium.
End the month on November 30 with a partial penumbral lunar eclipse. All 4 hours or so are visible to us, but the Earth’s penumbra will most likely only be detectable for about an hour centered on the peak of the eclipse at 01:43 AM PST.
Hasta nebula.
