I’m quite interested in the night sky; although, I can’t claim to be an expert or anything like that. Since we moved, in 2019, to West Wales, to one of the ‘Dark Sky‘ areas of the country, the view of the moon and stars has been outstanding. Sighting the Aurora unfortunately, to date, has eluded me!

I’m beginning to be able to identify planets, stars and constellations. I’ve recently discovered a couple of tools that, as well as helping to identify celestial bodies, they also help with satellite tracking.

The screenshot above is from a website that detects your location and formulates a schedule of satellite ‘passings’. It even shows you an image of your exact position (the photo above shows the trees on the hillside opposite my house and a tiny portion of the huge sycamore tree in our garden in the top right corner!) to help you work out where in the sky to look. It provides you with a week of passes of various satellites and will even send you a reminder alert if you want.

The screenshot below is of a smartphone app. It mainly shows the orbit of the International Space Station, it even tells you the names and nationalities of the astronauts who are on board at that moment in time (as I write, there are 7 on the space station; two Americans [both of whom are women], three Russians, one Japanese and a Dane). Another great option on this app is that as you hold your phone up to the sky, it tells what the names of the stars and planets directly in front of you.