Aberystwyth Guide Night Sky
Current night sky over Aberystwyth
This page helps explain what's in the sky by above Aberystwyth by using live data and forecasts. The page is layered(ish) - with Stars and Planets at the top followed by: Moon Phases, Heavens Above, International Space Station, Northern Lights, Meteor Showers, Planes, Cloud Cover and finally Street Lamps.
384km(ish) and up: Moon, Planets, Stars, etc
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
This chart can with updated with the latest positions by reloading the page every 10 minutes or so.
The centre of the circle shows what's directly above you.
The rim of the circle shows what's on the horizon.
Planets Visible in the Night Sky from Aberystwyth
384km(ish): Moon Phase
160km - 200,000km(ish) Man Made Stuff in Earth Orbit
Heavens Above shows timetables for when various satellites, space stations, space laboratories and shuttles are due to pass over Aberystwyth. It also shows, up to date sky charts, solar system charts, sun & moon rise & set times etcRealtime Visualization of man made objects orbiting in Low Earth Orbit (Use slide and zoom to find Aber) The red shapes are the fields of view of the ground based tracking radar stations.
400km: International Space Station
Naked-Eye visibility of the international space station from Aberystwyth90km - 150km(ish): Auroral Forecast (Northern Lights)
Updated every 30 minutes
0 - 70km(ish) Meteor Showers
Every day over 40,000kg of space dust enters the atmosphere. Most of this dust is microscopic and can't be seen, but a few larger pieces (=larger than a grain of sand) can be seen burning up in the atmosphere every hour. At certain, regular, times of the year there are more intense showers of meteors. The peak dates for the main meteor showers visible from Aberystwyth are listed on the right.
Many meteors can be seen days and even weeks either side of the peak activity.
NASA's Fluxtimator forecasts the meteor shower rate for many annual showers.
To use it you'll need to change the date and the location.
(If you don't want to use London then enter 52°25'North 4°05'West for Aberystwyth)
600m - 16km(ish): Planes
Aberystwyth Air Space
0-2km(ish): Cloud Cover
7 day 'clear sky' astronomy forecast for Aberystwyth from AccuWeather
3m: Street Lamps
See just how bad the light pollution is in Aberystwyth compared with just a few miles outside
Sky full of Crud? / Can't get out?
Get inspired with these virtual telescopes:
- Google Sky
- Microsoft's World Wide Telescope
- Hubble Telescope Gallery
- Another Hubble Telescope Gallery
- NASA's Eyes on the Solar System an online simulator that allows you to explore though space and time.
- NASA's Image and Video Library.