3 Things to See in Space with the Naked Eye

Hello and welcome to another Fun Friday. It was one of my New Year’s resolutions to do these posts every week, and today will be the last one for January. I did a month! I just hope I have enough ideas to keep going through the rest of the year.

I love to look up into the sky when it’s clear and dark. There are so many things to see. Far more than just stars. If you’re lucky enough to live where there is not a lot of light from a city, you might even be able to see other galaxies. Yes, it’s true! But, I’m talking today about more than just stars. I’ll start out with the easiest thing to see…

PLANETS

[image error]There are a few planets closer to us than our sun, so why shouldn’t we be able to see them. We can see our moon, right? Actually, you might have even seen a few planets thinking they were bright stars. Right now, in North America, Venus is extremely bright in the southern sky early in the morning. I subscribe to Space.com posts, and often they tell you not only how to see stars and meteor showers, they also tell you how to best see the planets at certain times of the year — You Can See 5 Bright Planets in the Night Sky

THE SPACE STATION

I subscribe to Spot The Station, an email service that tells me ahead of time when the space station will be visible in my area in the night sky. Of course, it has to be a clear sky to see it, but I have seen the space station fly over many times, and waved as the astronauts pass by. (Yes, I know they can’t see me.)

AURORA BOREALIS

It is my dream to see the Northern Lights. The result of electrons colliding with the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere, the auroras in the North and South are a beautiful site. There are sites that forecast when to best see the Northern Lights — http://www.aurora-service.org/aurora-forecast/ and tourist destinations to see the show from the comfort of your bed in a glass igloo — http://www.kakslauttanen.fi/en/

Tell me: How do you like to observe space?