You don't need a telescope, an app, or any experience. If you can see stars, you can see satellites. Here's everything you need to know to spot the ISS, Starlink trains, and other satellites from your backyard tonight.
🔭 OPEN LIVE TRACKERSatellites are visible during twilight — the 30-60 minutes after sunset or before sunrise. During this window, you're in darkness but satellites 400-600km above are still catching direct sunlight. In full darkness, most satellites are in Earth's shadow and invisible. Twilight is the sweet spot.
Clear skies are essential — even thin cloud will block your view. A new moon or crescent moon is ideal because the sky will be darker. A full moon washes out faint objects like Starlinks, but bright satellites like the ISS are visible even in moonlight.
Satellites can appear anywhere in the sky, but most cross from west to east. They typically take 2-5 minutes to cross from one horizon to the other. Our tracker gives you plain-English directions like "Look Northwest, halfway up the sky" so you know exactly where to point your eyes.
A satellite looks like a star that moves steadily across the sky — no blinking, no sound, just a smooth silent glide. The ISS is exceptionally bright, like a slow-moving Venus. Starlink trains look like a line of evenly spaced dots. Planes blink and have red lights.
It takes 10-15 minutes for your eyes to fully adjust to darkness. Avoid looking at your phone screen — the bright light resets your night vision. Use OrbitalNodes.ai's red night vision mode which preserves your dark adaptation.
Use the "fist method" to measure angles in the sky. Hold your fist at arm's length — it covers about 10° of sky. Our tracker uses this same method in its directions.
Yes — Reflect Orbital's EARENDIL-1, targeting a mid-2026 launch, is designed to reach Venus-equivalent brightness (magnitude ~−4) during passes. That's comparable to the ISS at peak. Unlike the ISS, EARENDIL-1 is steerable — it can be tilted away from Earth when not in use, so it won't always be bright. EARENDIL-1: the space mirror launching in 2026 → covers everything about orbital mirrors.
OrbitalNodes.ai runs entirely in your browser — no download needed. It uses your GPS location to show exactly what's above you right now, with plain-English directions like "look northeast, 40° up" so you know exactly where to point. It also predicts upcoming passes for the ISS, Starlink, Hubble, and more.
You can — but the viewing window is short. Satellites are only visible during twilight when you're in darkness but the satellite is still sunlit. In the middle of the night most LEO satellites are in Earth's shadow and produce no reflected light. On any clear evening you have roughly 30-90 minutes after sunset to spot them, depending on your latitude and the time of year.
Use a compass app on your phone or OrbitalNodes' directions — we give plain-English compass directions like "Northwest" and elevation like "halfway up the sky" or "about 5 fists above the horizon." The fist method works well: hold your fist at arm's length against the horizon — each fist-width is about 10°. Five fists up is roughly 50° elevation.
Yes for bright ones. The ISS at magnitude −4 is easily visible from city centres even with heavy light pollution. Tiangong and BlueBird-6 are also city-visible. Fainter satellites like individual Starlinks (magnitude 3-6) benefit from darker suburban or rural skies. The key variable isn't light pollution — it's whether you have a clear view of the sky without buildings in the way.
Speed and duration. A meteor (shooting star) crosses the entire sky in 1-2 seconds with a streak or trail, often leaving a brief glow. A satellite takes 3-6 minutes to cross the sky at a slow, steady pace — no streak, no flash, just a smooth glide. If you had time to say "what's that?" it was a satellite. If you almost missed it, it was a meteor.
At mid-latitudes (30°-60°N/S), spring and summer evenings offer the best conditions — longer twilight windows and more comfortable temperatures for standing outside. At very high latitudes like Scandinavia or Alaska, summer nights never get fully dark, which means satellites are sunlit almost all night. Equatorial locations have shorter twilight windows but satellites pass overhead rather than low on the horizon.