with the naked eye, which satellites are visible at night in orbit from the uk?

Question

and are satellites generally brighter and closer to earth than stars? can you tell the difference without mapping the stars? which types of satellite orbit closest and does this ever vary significantly? thanks

Answer 1

Heavens-above.com can tell you what's visible when from wherever you are:
http://www.heavens-above.com/

Satellites move relative to the stars, so they're pretty easy to tell apart. Satellites that you can see with the naked eye are in low Earth orbit, in the range of 300 to 2000 km (180 to 1200 miles) up. he nearest star you can see from the UK is nearly 80 trillion (80 x 10^12) km (50 trillion miles) away.

Answer 2

There are hundreds of satellites visible naked eye from the UK, or anywhere else on Earth for that matter. They range in brightness from reflections off the solar panels of the Iridium satellites, which are brighter than Venus and almost as bright as the Moon, to faint specks at the very limit of visibility. All are much much closer to Earth than are the stars. The web site in the Source will give you detailed predictions of satellite passes for your location. Satellites are easy to spot because they move with a steady speed against the starry background.

Answer 3

thats possible. in fact i have seen about 5 already early in the morning. As per the latest estimates, the total number of artificial satellites orbiting the Earth today is around 6,000. Of these, about 3,000 are not operational having lived out their useful life and are part of the space debris. The remaining include satellites used for communication, weather tracking, navigation, research, remote sensing and reconnaissance. Since the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, nine countries and a few international consortia have acquired the capability to launch satellites. Of these, the US owns the maximum number of satellites in

Answer 4

calsky.com

That site will send you alerts telling you when and where to look.

Answer 5

starry night program will have all that and when you can see them !!