Thursday’s clouds clear away this evening leaving us open to see some cool things in the sky over Alabama and Tennessee tonight!

First of all, there’s the Moon and Venus in the evening sky. It’s been there for a several nights running, but with better visibility tonight you should really be able to pick out Venus setting ahead of the crescent Moon between 7:45 PM and 10:48 PM.

Now, for the coolest part.

You may have heard about ‘lights tracking across the sky’ last night – or the past few nights. You have a great opportunity to see them Thursday evening if the sky is clear where you are after 8 PM Thursday:

8:07 pm, 30 Apr 2020
Starlink-6,7 NEW, BRIGHT (3.7) for 4 mins
Look from NORTHWEST (306°) to SOUTHEAST (148°)
Elevation (from horizon): start: 11°, max: 56°, end: 11°
Look it up for your location and see other opportunities to watch at SpaceX Starlink Tracker

What is Starlink? It’s a system of satellites that “SpaceX has said the satellites will allow it to beam Internet directly to terminals that consumers will set up at their homes or offices.”

Here are some interesting notes from Dr. Bill Cooke at NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville:

 “…they appear like a moving string of beads, which is very strange looking. Over time, the satellites disperse and do not appear in groups like this. But for a few days after launch, one can see this faint ghostly string of lights in the night sky.

As you have read in the news, these satellites are becoming so  numerous that they are beginning to affect some types of astronomical observations. In the case of our meteor cameras, the Starlink satellites move slower than meteors across the sky, so we have adjusted our lower limit on angular rate up to exclude them. It isn’t so easy for the guys with big telescopes to remove them from their data.

[The video above this quote] is a 200-second composite image from last night showing some of the Starlink satellites from last week’s April 22 launch (7^th group) passing through the field of view of one of our Huntsville meteor cameras. And as you can see from the video, they are more dispersed than in the earlier videos, as we are over a week from launch. Still, it seems like there is a never ending procession of satellites.”

Dr. Bill Cooke/NASA Meteoroid Environment Office

So look up tonight! You might just see something you’ve never seen before, or you might see something you’ve seen your whole life and never really appreciated until you took a moment to consider how much there is to learn, see, and understand!