Can I see Starlink tonight in Hickory, NC?
No visible passes tonight.
Next good chance: Tuesday, Oct 13 at 8:05 pm, looking southwest.
The next 8 nights at a glance
11 visible passesPass times, night by night
start · path · brightnessTonight · Wednesday, Oct 7
dark 7:26 pm – 7:00 amThursday, Oct 8 – Saturday, Oct 10
no visible passesSunday, Oct 11
dark 7:21 pm – 7:03 amMonday, Oct 12
dark 7:20 pm – 7:04 amTuesday, Oct 13
dark 7:18 pm – 7:05 amWednesday, Oct 14
dark 7:17 pm – 7:06 amMagnitude 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.
The ISS tonight
ISS pass times for Hickory →No visible pass of the International Space Station tonight. Next chance: Tuesday, Oct 13 at 6:33 am, looking south-southwest. The space station is far brighter than Starlink satellites, so it is often the easier thing to spot.
Tiangong, China's space station
9 visible passes in 8 nightsYes · 5:54 am, look north. Tiangong orbits about 386 km up, tilted 41.5° to the equator. It looks like a bright, steady star gliding across the sky, fainter than the ISS but easy to see without a telescope.
| Night | Appears | Highest | Mag ≈ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday, Oct 8 | 5:54 am | 27° N | -0.5 |
| Friday, Oct 9 | 6:30 am | 34° NNE | -1 |
| Saturday, Oct 10 | 5:34 am | 24° NE | 0.5 |
| Sunday, Oct 11 | 6:10 am | 48° NNE | -1.5 |
| Monday, Oct 12 | 5:14 am | 14° ENE | 2.5 |
| Monday, Oct 12 | 6:46 am | 57° SSW | -2 |
| Tuesday, Oct 13 | 5:50 am | 54° E | -1 |
| Wednesday, Oct 14 | 6:26 am | 29° SSW | -1.5 |
| Thursday, Oct 15 | 5:30 am | 13° SE | 1.5 |
Local time. Brightness is a rough estimate (±1 magnitude; lower is brighter). How we compute this.
Seeing Starlink from Hickory
Hickory is at 35.7°N. Tonight the sky is dark enough from 7:26 pm until 7:00 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 11 visible passes (11 in the evening, 0 before dawn); 2 of them should be easy to spot (estimated magnitude 4 or brighter).
The best one is on Wednesday, Oct 14 at 7:24 pm: it appears in the southwest, climbs to 27° in the south and fades in the east-southeast at about magnitude 4.
The passes come from these launches:
- 2026-225, launched 28 September 2026 (train, 26 satellites, now 296–316 km up): 11 passes here
Satellites from launch 2026-219 (20 September 2026) are also low and bright, but they do not pass over Hickory while it is dark and they are sunlit in this period.
Questions
Can I see Starlink tonight in Hickory?
No visible passes tonight. Next good chance: Tuesday, Oct 13 at 8:05 pm, looking southwest.
When is the next Starlink train over Hickory?
Sunday, Oct 11 at 8:00 pm: 22 satellites from launch 2026-225, appearing in the south-southwest and reaching 17°.
Which direction should I look for Starlink from Hickory?
This week most passes appear in the southwest or south-southwest. Each pass above lists where it appears, how high it climbs and where it fades.