Last chance to see orbiting shuttle with naked eyes

A record one million spectators are expected to be at or near NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre last week to see the historic last launch of the space shuttle Atlantis.

The upcoming STS-135 mission marks the last time sky-watchers around the world will have the chance to see a shuttle passing above their backyards. Depending on where you are on Earth, both Atlantis and the International Space Station (ISS) should be visible to the naked eye during the mission, which is scheduled to last for 12 days.

When skies are clear, Earthbound viewers generally see both the shuttle and the ISS as fast-moving ‘stars.’ The spacecraft are easy to spot, because they are among the brightest objects in the night sky.

Even while Earth is cast in shadow, the orbiting objects are being hit by direct sunlight, which reflects off their shiny, metallic surfaces. Still, knowing exactly when and where to look is crucial:

The spacecraft are moving at about five miles (eight kilometres) a second, and they will cross the sky in just a few minutes. “They move very fast, so a telescope would not be the recommended way to observe for novice sky-gazers,” said Raminder Singh Samra, an astronomer at the H R MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, Canada.

“Binoculars will allow you to scan the sky fairly quickly and at low enough magnification to provide a steady image.”

Anyone wanting to catch the shuttle in flight will need up-to-the-minute viewing timetables, said Anthony Cook, an astronomical observer for Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.

“Because the shuttle and ISS orbits are sometimes changed” - to move them out of the path of orbiting space junk, for example - “the timing and visibility become a little uncertain when projected more than a week into the future,” Cook said.

National Geographic