You may have noticed that this site issues weather alerts. It has others like emergency, flag half-staff, etc... as long as it relates to OBX or a national issue. But I want to point out Space/Sky alerts. Most people don't realize how much and how often things are happening above their heads here. These alerts will also tell you how to view them (what direction and timing). These notifications will give you a 24 hour heads up and then a reminder 1 hour ahead of time. You can see these from Hatteras to Carova - Pea Island is the geographic location used - roughly mid way through the islands/sandbar. This anchor works for the Outer Banks — but it's not perfect - the exact compass direction and elevation can be off by a few degrees at either ends of the islands/sandbar. This is what we are looking to alert you to: Rocket Launches Bright Satellites ISS Passes Starlink Passes Aurora Alerts Meteor Showers Moon Events Eclipses Planet Events Comets Reentry Events Tiangong Passes This is ISS orbiting. Don't just look for a water view. Look up!
@Craic'n Crabs this is awesome. I follow so many different sites and appreciate that I can find them all here. Nothing beats a Falcon Heavy launch!
There are a lot of folks who live there that are clueless about the SpaceX launches. I have a lot of friends there and earlier this year I was mentioning the rocket launch to the folks I golf with and one responded as if I were talking about Wallops. I had to educate him that the Wallops launches are like the Little League. He had no idea that the SpaceX launches were so visible and he's been living there for almost 40 years. The still image is the remnants of the Falcon Heavy launch from a few years ago. The video is one of the numerous normal Falcon launches I've seen there over the past few years. The ones ~30 mins after sunset are the best.
That is crazy cool.
@SkinnyWater You are spot on. That's exactly why I wanted to add this function. Your photo/video are crazy good and as you said, visible to a lot of people that don't know these are flying over their heads.
One of my favorite sky experiences was an epic lightning show we had on Oct 17, 2022. It's common to see lightning over the ocean, but this particular event was at the intensity seen in this video for at least 20 mins. My stepdad and I got tired of watching it after a while lol. I pulled up my weather app and on the radar screen we could see it was nearly 100 miles offshore. Way too far away to hear anything, but the light show was second to none.
@SkinnyWater Looks like 4th of July! Very nice.
One suggestion to anyone interested is to download the NextSpaceflight app. You can set filters, I have mine set for Florida launches. It’s much like the info on the site, but you get a push notification a day or more in advance. The app also shows the trajectory. Anything launching to the southeast, ignore. Launching to the northeast pay attention. Around launch time I pull up the live stream for the “Spaceflight Now” channel on YouTube because there may be delays or cancellations. If you see the launch on YouTube you have 2 mins to get a beverage and head outside. It takes ~2-3 mins from launch to visibility on the OBX.
@SassyGirl great photo
Very grainy, but happy to have caught these on Jan 15, 2023 from upper deck looking south. It's nice getting these alerts and will make it easier to plan to watch them.
@SassyGirl When the timing of sunset is just right a rocket launch can be something to not miss. I was eating at Ocean Blvd and got to a deck to get this picture, it was about 7pm.
I told my father in law, many years ago, that I enjoyed watching satellites pass overhead and he thought I was making it up. You can't see those without a telescope he said.
@Tim-OBX that's an awesome picture and what a way to end a great dinner.