A free SkyLens field guide
What's Up There
The plain-English field guide to the night sky — how to spot the ISS, Starlink, the next eclipse, and tell a satellite from a UFO.
Look up on any clear night and there's more moving above you than you'd think — space stations, satellite trains, meteors, the occasional eclipse. Most people never learn to read it. This short guide fixes that: seven things you can spot with nothing but your eyes, when to look, and how to know what you're seeing.
Chapter 1 · The brightest one
The International Space Station
The ISS is the brightest human-made object in the night sky — a steady white light gliding across in 3–5 minutes, no blinking. It orbits at 28,000 km/h, and astronauts aboard see 16 sunrises a day.
When to look: the 1–2 hours after sunset or before sunrise. Find exact pass times on the SkyLens ISS guide.
Chapter 2 · The string of lights
The Starlink "train"
A straight line of evenly spaced dots moving together is a fresh batch of SpaceX Starlink satellites — the most-reported "UFO" today. They travel in a chain for days after launch, then spread out.
Best seen in the twilight window shortly after a launch. Full guide: how to see Starlink tonight.
Chapter 3 · Satellite or UFO?
How to tell what you're seeing
Steady + silent + straight line = satellite. Blinking red/green + strobe = aircraft. A quick streak gone in a second = meteor. A slow fireball breaking into fragments = something reentering the atmosphere.
Identify the exact object overhead with the SkyLens live tracker.
Chapter 4 · The big one
The next total solar eclipse
August 2, 2027 — the "eclipse of the century," with up to 6 min 22 sec of totality (the longest until 2114). Its path crosses Spain, North Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Nothing else in the sky compares.
Full path + safety guide: the next solar eclipse. Never look without ISO-certified eclipse glasses.
Chapter 5 · The near-misses
Asteroids passing Earth
Several asteroids pass near Earth every week — almost all harmless, millions of kilometers away. The famous one, Apophis, will pass closer than some satellites on April 13, 2029, and will be visible to the naked eye.
Track live close approaches: asteroids passing Earth this week.
Chapter 6 · Life up there
What it's like to live in space
The station you spot in Chapter 1 has people living in it — sleeping strapped to walls, drinking recycled water, growing taller as their spines decompress, exercising two hours a day so their bones don't waste away.
The full story: life in space, explained.
Chapter 7 · The unexplained
When it's none of the above
Most lights have an answer. A few don't — and the U.S. government has now declassified 375 of its own unresolved cases. Real files, official sources, genuinely unexplained.
Browse them: every declassified Pentagon UFO file.
Now go look up.
Open the live tracker, set your location, and see exactly what's overhead right now.
Based on public NASA/ESA/CelesTrak data and official records. SkyLens is an independent educational platform, not affiliated with any space agency. © SkyLens / YantraAI.