ISS passes over São Paulo
The globe opens centered on São Paulo (23.6° S, 46.6° W) with the ISS in gold and the city's place card unfolded to the station's passes over the next three days, worked out in your browser from the latest CelesTrak elements with SGP4, the same orbit the globe flies it on.
Each row of the São Paulo list is one pass: the day, when the ISS rises above São Paulo's horizon and sets again on São Paulo's own clock (America/Sao_Paulo), how many degrees up it climbs, and from which direction to which it crosses. The rows in gold are the passes São Paulo can see with the eye, the station sunlit against a dark sky.
The gold ring around São Paulo marks where the ISS has to be for it to stand 10° or more above São Paulo's horizon, about 1,400 km (870 miles) out; the dashed one, about 2,260 km (1,400 miles) out, where it first clears the horizon at all. Each time the station's track crosses the solid ring is one of the passes in São Paulo's list.
How to read it
São Paulo is at 23.5° south, right on the Tropic of Capricorn, and the ISS crosses it from every direction, with the highest passes nearly overhead. Twilight is short at that latitude, so the visible passes over São Paulo come in the hour or so after dusk or before dawn.
São Paulo’s summer, from December to March, is the rainy season, with afternoon storms that often leave cloud into the evening. Winter, from June to August, is drier, with more clear nights, though the air over the city can be hazy then; a high pass in a dry spell is the one to catch.
Questions
Where can I see the ISS from in São Paulo?
Somewhere above the skyline or with an open view: Ibirapuera Park, the Pico do Jaraguá to the northwest of the city, or a high-rise terrace. São Paulo’s glow is no match for the station, but its towers block passes low on the horizon.
Are the times on Brasília time?
Yes: the list keeps São Paulo’s clock, America/Sao_Paulo, three hours behind UTC. Brazil has had no daylight saving since 2019, so São Paulo times stay three hours behind UTC all year.
Why do many passes over São Paulo show as not visible?
Most are in daylight, or happen while the station is in the Earth’s shadow late at night. Only a pass in the short window after dusk or before dawn shows up in São Paulo’s sky; the gold rows are those.
Sources
The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=0&imerg=0&sats=featured&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0&lat=-23.55&lon=-46.63&city=sao-paulo&isspasses=1&issring=1
Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.
view | fixed · sunrel · orbit · moon · track |
track | what to follow: iss, tiangong, satgus (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), launch, sunrise, moonrise |
lat, lon | viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel) |
period, inc | orbit period (hours) and inclination (°) |
dist | viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic |
mag, rot | size and rotation (°) |
wait | seconds between redraws (default 60) |
time, speed | ISO start time; clock multiplier |
clouds, lights, grid, markers, label | 0 or 1 |
borders | Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key B) |
terminator | The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key Z) |
stars | 1, 0, or photo (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth) |
sats | all (Starlink + named), featured, or 0 |
aurora, storms, fires, quakes | 0 hides that layer (keys A H F E) |
buoys, buoy | Buoys on the globe, off by default (key Shift+B); buoy=46026 opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it. |
meteors | The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key Shift+M) |
iono | Ionosphere wash: tec electron content (GloTEC), drap HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or 0 (key Shift+I) |
lightning, events, snow | lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys L D I) |
sst | Sea temperature: temp, anomaly (El Niño, marine heatwaves; 1 means this), or 0 (key O) |
lst | Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): auto the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (1 means this), day, night, or 0 (key Shift+K) |
soil | Soil moisture (SMAP L4): surface the top 5 cm (1 means this), root the root zone to 1 m, or 0 (key Shift+W) |
chl | Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: 1 or 0 (key Shift+O; off by default) |
aerosol | Aerosols: aod VIIRS optical depth (1 means this), index the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or 0 (key Shift+Y; off by default) |
waves, wavesrc | Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: 1 or 0 (off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
currents, currentsrc | Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: 1 or 0 (off by default; key Q cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its latest.json |
coral, coralsrc | Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: 1 or 0 (key Shift+R; off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
ash | volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key Shift+A; off by default) |
radar, smoke, tsunami | RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys R Y Shift+T) |
imagery | live GOES and MTG pictures by day, daily yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, painted neither; with live or daily, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key Shift+P; the older truecolor=0/1 still works) |
severe | Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key X) |
imerg | With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (R’s middle step turns it off) |
relief | terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key Shift+E); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief |
reliefscale | terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1) |
isslive | NASA ISS telemetry panel: track (while tracking the ISS), 1 (always) or 0 (key Shift+L) |
isscam | 1 opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°) |
firehours | show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12) |
launches | 0 hides launch mode (key U) |
bodies, bodyscale | Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size) |
fps | 1 shows the frame-rate display (key ~) |
feeds | 1 shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key Shift+U) |
cloudsrc, satsrc | folders holding each latest.json |
Weather data by RainViewer