How many orbitting satellites are visible on clear nights in the western United States?
924882
There are thousands of large objects up there.  Any evening within a few hours after sunset, and it's pretty common to see quite a number of them with the naked eye.  They catch the sun's light and you can see the dots moving across the sky.
579128
No, the line between day and night, called the terminator, is imperceptible at the earth's surface, although you can see it clearly from space
232268
Yes, absolutely. No binoculars or telescopic equipment needed. They normally look like fast-moving lights - a bit like a plane except (normally) no flashes. When they reach the Earth's shadow they disappear quickly, so it's normally best to look for them after dusk or an hour or so before the dawn. Log into the website below with your current latitude and longitude coordinates and you will be able to predict where and when a satellite will be visible in the sky. It's not unusual to be able to spot 5 or 10 satellites on any one night. \n\nThe International Space Station is particularly bright when it passes over. \n\nSpecial satellites cause what is known as an "Iridium Flare" which is so bright you can see it during the day. You'll find more details about Iridium flares in the website below.
846727
Just look anywhere in the sky. I saw one about an hour ago, but that was after an hour of looking. Normally you can't see them until after midnight, but unfortunately the predicted swarm only lasts about an hour and will end before midnight in the US. Europe should get a good view though.
259018
63 known satellites (as of Feb. 2004); the four Galilean moons plus many others.
595493
at her here rat rato re stratosphere sphere to.\nI see at least 9.
782964
Unless you want to look at the moon,  you want a calm clear night with NO moon.  So, a night with low humidity, no to little breeze (causes turbulance in the light you see), and you want it dark.. so no moon or near new moon.  If it's too cold, there may be ice crystals in the air and that causes a halo around things.\n\nThe higher up in the atmosphere you can get the better.  \n\nIf you want to see a certain thing, you have to wait till that thing is directly overhead to see it most clearly.  That way you are looking through as little air as possible.
144357
A radio relay station in orbit above the earth that receives, amplifies and redirects analog and digital signals contained within a carrier frequency. There are three kinds. Geostationary (GEO) satellites are in orbit 22,282 miles above the earth and rotate with the earth, thus appearing stationary. The downlink from GEOs back to earth can be localized into small areas or cover as much as a third of the earth's surface.\n\nLow-earth orbit (LEO) satellites reside no more than 1,000 miles above the earth and revolve around the globe every couple of hours. They are only in view for a few minutes, and multiple LEOs are required to maintain continuous coverage. Medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellites are in the middle, taking about six hours to orbit the earth and in view for a couple of hours.\n\nI hope this helps...\n\nDon
142556
At NASA. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/\n\nThey have a listing for many different cities around the world (click on "sightings by city").
166889
I live in a small town in the midwest and make it a point to go out and do some stargazing.  The street lights do wash out some of the dimmer stars, but there are still a lot of stars to see.  Going out into the countryside will reveal a lot more stars.  Not only the stars though, in the last week I have also seen Mars, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury..and the most fantastic cresent moon in the early morning.  If a person can get up into the mountains at night (no mountains where I am at), the sky is very full of stars...way too cool.
766876
I know that San Dieguito River Park in north county san diego is doing some astronomy events. \nhttp://www.sdrp.org\nhttp://www.sdrp.org/activities.htm and scroll down for Stargazing in San Pasqual valley. They are really nice people at SDRP.\n\nalso, the Palomar observatory is also in North county, and they sometimes have star parties up at the campground.  It is really cool because they bring out a bunch of really big telescopes and point them at binary starts and neat stuff and let people look. \nhttp://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/\n\nOh, here is the San Diego Astronomy Association's site\nhttp://www.sdaa.org/\nand astronmy white pages\nhttp://whitepages.amsky.com/\n\n;)
772042
The light could have been better than usual - I've spent evenings in the desert out here stargazing and seen around that many some nights...given the number of satellites up there, not to mention other junk, I'd say that you had a good viewing, but that it's probably nothing out of the ordinary.
949144
Tonight and tomorrow night. Look after midnight though since the meteors will be arriving from space on the dawn side of the Earth. Before midnight you are on the "back" side of Earth and won't see the meteors. Just before the start of morning twilight is the best time to look. Other than that, they should be visible from any place on Earth.
16063
If you go out to the desert or a remote area, away from the city & look into the sky on a clear night, you will see many stars & planets in the sky. If you look into the sky using night vision goggles, you will be absolutly amazed to see over a million times the stars & planets in the same sky. You will see so many "Shooting Stars" you wont know which one to watch. With that in mind, knowing that many stars are out there, & thoses are just the ones you can see, the numbers are in favor of YES. Space is just too vast, there are too many other stars & planets (Billions...Trillions, or more) to think that we are the ONLY ones here. Remember, space goes on......forever.... there is no known "end".
1171426
yes, however it only appears as a small point of moving light tracking across the sky. \n\nYou would have to get an orbital schedual, its orbital track, get a nice dark night (new moons are best) and be away from light pollution... central rockies are a good place...
1008088
Extremely doubtful.  The best resolution for US spy satellites has been guessed to be about 2 inches, which is much larger than the numbers on a license plate.  Even if it could resolve that small, the viewing angle would make it difficult to see the plate.\n\nAnyway, spy satellites circle the Earth at altitudes of about 150-200 miles, they aren't in geostationary orbit, which is around 22,000 miles.  At that distance, they'd be lucky to distinguish large buildings.\n\nEdit: A Guy, the GPS satellites are not in geostationary orbit.  They orbit at around 12,000 miles, which is about half geostationary distance.  The orbits are designed such that there are almost always 4 satellites in view from any point on the surface, since you need 4 for complete 3-D positioning.\n\nGeostationary orbit is used mostly for communications satellites, and some large-area weather overview satellites.  We do have some military satellites up there that watch for missile launches and any other large heat events, because they can be seen from that distance.  At that height, they can cover a good chunk of a hemisphere.\n\nHaysoos, stop being so paranoid.  They can't read your paper.
682284
yes u can see them .go far awy from city where there is vry less artificial light source n enjoy this event at dark night .u can see them moving as though a star is moving . satellite don't flicker.\n\nor see tht in film the octubar sky.