ORBITAL 轨道桥
UTC --:--:--

Cities / United States

Chicago 芝加哥

41.88°N, 87.63°W · America/Chicago · all times below are local

At 41.9°N the station can pass close to overhead; this week's highest pass reaches 73° to the south-south-west and the sky stays properly dark for 10.3 hours.

orbits & twilight computed 2026-10-29 20:54 UTC FRESH · 8 min ago

The sky is properly dark from 19:30 to 05:48 (10.3 hours); Tiangong makes its next visible pass at 18:16, reaching 70° to the south-east; Mars is the highest planet at 59° to the west-north-west, around 06:12; the Moon is 82% lit (Waning gibbous).

Dark window
10.3h
sun below −18°
Next pass
18:16
Tiangong · SE · 70°
Highest pass
73°
SSW
Moon lit
82%
75.2° peak
Satellite passes — next 5 days ISS · Tiangong · Hubble · above 10° under a dark sky
TiangongThu 29 Oct18:16–18:26 (10 min)70° SEWSW → E
TiangongThu 29 Oct19:52–20:02 (10 min)73° SSWW → ESE
HubbleThu 29 Oct20:14–20:22 (8 min)10° SSW → SE
TiangongThu 29 Oct21:29–21:39 (10 min)26° SSWW → SE
ISSFri 30 Oct00:09–00:19 (10 min)46° SSESW → ENE
ISSFri 30 Oct01:46–01:56 (10 min)28° NNWW → NE
ISSFri 30 Oct03:24–03:33 (10 min)16° NWNW → ENE
ISSFri 30 Oct05:01–05:11 (10 min)23° NNENW → E
TiangongFri 30 Oct18:52–19:02 (10 min)73° WSWW → E
HubbleFri 30 Oct19:41–19:49 (8 min)10° SSW → SE
HubbleSat 31 Oct19:07–19:16 (9 min)10° SSW → SE
HubbleSun 01 Nov17:34–17:43 (8 min)10° SSW → SE

Tonight's timelineChicago · 17:54 → 07:18

Interactive plan →
Moon75° WSW
Mars59° WNW
Jupiter54° NW
Saturn49° SSW
Venusbelow 10°
Mercurybelow 10°
17:5420:3523:1501:5604:3707:18
Best targetshighest first
01Mars02:54–06:1259° WNWup 01:36–07:18
02Jupiter03:30–06:1254° NWup 02:06–07:18
03Saturn19:12–02:3649° SSWup 17:54–04:00

At 82% illuminated the Moon is the brightest thing in the sky tonight and will wash out fainter targets while it is up. Look for the planets anyway — they cut through moonlight better than almost anything else.

How passes work

We track three objects bright enough to be worth going outside for: the ISS, China's Tiangong station and the Hubble Space Telescope. Each orbits at roughly 7.5 km/s and comes round every 90–95 minutes, but a pass only counts as visible when the object is sunlit while your sky is dark — which is why they cluster in the two hours after sunset and before sunrise.

Elevation is the angle above your horizon. 10° is easy to spot if you know where to look; 45° is unmistakable — brighter than any star, moving like an aircraft that makes no sound. The last column tells you where to look first and where it will disappear.

Hubble is far fainter than the two stations: treat it as a dark-sky target for people who already know the sky, not a first sighting.

Positions from SGP4 propagation of the current Celestrak TLEs, checked against your coordinates; accuracy a few kilometres, which for “is it over my head” is plenty. A stale TLE drifts by seconds, not by orbits.

Nearby citiesclosest by distance, each recomputed for its own coordinates

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Other cities

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