Russian space station Mir visible over Mumbai skies

“However, since the space station completes an earth orbits once every 90 minutes, it moves very fast.” Co-ordinates of the space station, including the information that it would make a low-earth pass over India, were recently publicised by NASA and the Russian Space Agency.

Viewing man-made satellites was not a new phenomena, Rawal explained. There are over 500 in the sky and most can be seen seen in the skies as multiple moving points of light. “Many of these are also confused as UFOs.”

Mir was earlier sighted by members of the Amateur Astronomers Association and its trail as it moved across the skies has been captured on film.

Short time exposures of between 20 to 30 seconds, of thespace station were captured on film on may 15 and 17 in the late evening just after sunset.

According to the association, the space station was almost as bright as the star Sirius.

It moved from the constellation Hydra’ to Draco’ via the constellation Leo. It was sighted accurately at the predicted time of 20.41 hours and disappeared from view a little over four minutes later.

Two days later on May 17 Mir was sighted in the early twilight in roughly the same region, but closer to Venus, and despite heavily overcast skies, could be seen from 1930.15 hours.

According to Bharat Adur, Vice president of the Association and senior scientist of the Nehru Science Centre.