Rotorua Daily Post
  • Rotorua Daily Post home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Residential property listings
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Rural
  • Sport

Locations

  • Tauranga
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō & Tūrangi

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales

Weather

  • Rotorua
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Tokoroa
  • Taupō

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Rotorua Daily Post

Nasa puts out heads up to sky watchers

Rotorua Daily Post
11 Nov, 2012 07:00 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Nasa is giving amateur Rotorua astronomers the opportunity to spot the International Space Station as it flies across the sky.

Nasa's Spot the Station service sends you an email or text message a few hours before the space station passes over your house.

Rotorua astronomer Alasdair Jackson said he personally was a fan of heavens-above.com, a website which picked up not only the space station, but also other bright satellites and Iridium flares - bright flashes that come off the solar panels of a satellite.

Also of note was a website called Galaxy Zoo, which showed the thousands of galaxies in the Northern skies which had been mapped in detail by a digital telescope.

It gave amateur astronomers the chance to analyse different galaxies and categorise them in terms of their shape or colour.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"You can go through and analyse however many galaxies you want to analyse and then send it off," Mr Jackson said.

The information is then collated by astronomers into a central database, he said.

After the sun and moon, Nasa says the space station is the third brightest object in the sky and is easy to see if you know where and when to look for it.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

At over 300km above the ground, the space station looks like a fast-moving plane and is best viewed on clear nights.

Nasa only notifies of good sighting opportunities - sightings that are high enough in the sky (40 degrees or more) and last long enough to give the best view of the orbiting laboratory; anywhere from once or twice a week to once or twice a month, depending on the space station's orbit.

The station is a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit - its ownership and use was established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements. It cost US$150 billion ($184 billion) to build and was launched in November 1998. The space station programme is a joint project between five participating space agencies - Nasa, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

In other astronomical news, a partial solar eclipse will blot out 91 per cent of the sun in some parts of the country on Wednesday.

Solar Saros 133, a series of eclipses which last occurred almost two decades ago, is scheduled to begin at 9.18am over Auckland, reaching maximum coverage at 10.28am.

At maximum coverage, the sun would appear as a slim crescent - but is not expected to have a significant effect on the amount of daylight.

Up to 91 per cent of the sun would be blocked out in Northland, but less than 60 per cent would be obscured in the far South Island. The best vantage point was along the "path of totality" - a 180km path created by the shadow of the moon moving east from northern Australia, passing about midway between New Zealand and New Caledonia and finishing just before reaching the coast of Chile.



Earlier this year, the Transit of Venus on June 6 sparked intense excitement in astronomy circles when the planet glided across the face of the sun and changed from being an evening star in the west to a morning star in the east. It last occurred in 2004 and will not happen again until 2117. More information on Nasa's Spot the Station service can be found on their website: spotthestation.Nasa.gov.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Rotorua Daily Post

Eastern BoP mayors unite against council amalgamation

Premium
Rotorua Daily Post

'Hiding from the council': Rotorua's secret pod shelter for homeless

Rotorua Daily Post

One critical, three seriously injured: BoP crash closes road


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Rotorua Daily Post

Eastern BoP mayors unite against council amalgamation
Rotorua Daily Post

Eastern BoP mayors unite against council amalgamation

They argue amalgamation ignores Eastern Bay interests and priorities.

15 Jul 10:57 PM
Premium
Premium
'Hiding from the council': Rotorua's secret pod shelter for homeless
Rotorua Daily Post

'Hiding from the council': Rotorua's secret pod shelter for homeless

15 Jul 09:44 PM
One critical, three seriously injured: BoP crash closes road
Rotorua Daily Post

One critical, three seriously injured: BoP crash closes road

15 Jul 09:32 PM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Rotorua Daily Post e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Rotorua Daily Post
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP