astronomers predict china's tiangong space station will be visible to the naked eye in beijing over this week. on tuesday, i was invited to watch the space station pass by.
zhu jin, a researcher with the beijing planetarium, said a regular single-lens reflex camera could film tiangong's movement because it's relatively brighter.
"it's a little dimmer than venus. but it's brighter than all the other stars that you can see with your eyes," zhu said.
china's space station is over 300 kilometers above the earth. it orbits the earth once every hour and a half, which means it circles the earth 16 times a day. but not all 16 loops pass over beijing.
china's space station passes over beijing, july 13, 2021. zhu jin/beijing planetarium
china's space station passes over beijing, july 13, 2021. zhu jin/beijing planetarium
"we may not be able to see it during the day, but we can see it in a special way during its transit of the sun or moon," zhu said.
he explained that the space station can only be seen when it's daytime for the astronauts and night on the ground.
we saw it with our naked eyes at about 8:28 p.m. it was pretty clear.
it's like a shining little star flashing through the sky for about 10 seconds. it was brighter than the stars in the sky.
"in fact, it's cloudy today. but the tiangong was really bright. if you can see even just one star in the sky, you'll pretty much get to see it," zhu said with excitement.
