Can I see Starlink tonight in Washington?
Yes — best chance 4:58 am, looking east.
Visible from 4:58 am to 5:28 am, almost overhead in the sky (83°) at its highest; easy to see away from bright lights.
The next 8 nights at a glance
12 visible passesPass times, night by night
start · path · brightnessTonight · Wednesday 7 Oct
dark 7:04 pm – 6:45 amThursday 8 Oct
dark 7:01 pm – 6:47 amFriday 9 Oct
dark 6:59 pm – 6:49 amSaturday 10 Oct – Wednesday 14 Oct
no visible passesMagnitude is an estimate (lower = brighter; 3 is easy, 5 needs a dark sky). Predictions for satellites that are still raising their orbits can shift by a few minutes from one update to the next; check again before you go out. How we compute this.
Seeing Starlink from Washington
Washington is at 54.9°N. Tonight the sky is dark enough from 7:04 pm until 6:45 am. A Starlink satellite only shows when it is still in sunlight while you are in darkness, so the passes bunch up in the first hours after dusk and the last hours before dawn, not around midnight. Over the next 8 nights we found 12 visible passes (0 in the evening, 12 before dawn); 5 of them should be easy to spot (estimated magnitude 4 or brighter).
The best one is on Thursday 8 Oct at 4:58 am: it appears in the east, climbs to 83° in the west-southwest and fades in the northeast at about magnitude 3.5.
The passes come from these launches:
- 2026-219, launched 20 September 2026 (27 satellites, now 341–366 km up): 12 passes here
Satellites from launch 2026-225 (28 September 2026) are also low and bright, but they do not pass over Washington while it is dark and they are sunlit in this period.
No train is visible this week. A train is only a train for about the first 10 days after a launch; here is why some weeks have nothing.
Questions
Can I see Starlink tonight in Washington?
Yes — best chance 4:58 am, looking east. Visible from 4:58 am to 5:28 am, almost overhead in the sky (83°) at its highest; easy to see away from bright lights.
When is the next Starlink train over Washington?
There is no train pass over Washington in the next 8 nights. Trains are only visible for about 10 days after a launch; the latest launch in our data is 2026-225 on 28 September 2026.
Which direction should I look for Starlink from Washington?
This week most passes appear in the east or west-northwest. Each pass above lists where it appears, how high it climbs and where it fades.
Nearby cities
All of England →Also tonight: the ISS
ISS pass times for Washington →No visible pass of the International Space Station tonight. The ISS does not pass over Washington in a dark sky in the next 8 nights. The space station is far brighter than Starlink satellites, so it is often the easier thing to spot.