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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Ariane Sohrabi-Shiraz

How to spot Santa's sleigh in the sky this Christmas - and what time to start searching

There's just one more sleep until Christmas, when families come together for presents, food and good times. Many children will no doubt be filled with excitement tonight as they wonder what Father Christmas has left for them under the tree.

As everyone knows, it's the biggest night of the year for Santa Claus, and he will be busy from midnight tonight, when he will start to travel all over the world to make his deliveries.

Most of us will be fast asleep when Santa makes his deliveries, but you'll know that he's been when you wake up to find some neatly-wrapped presents nestled under your tree.

You just need to know where to look (Getty)

But it turns out that if you wake up really early on Christmas Day, December 25, and look up to the sky, there's a chance you might spot Santa and his reindeers shooting through the sky.

Early risers in the UK should be able to spot him heading back to the North Pole at around 5.37am (from London), where he will be visible for only three minutes heading east, so you'll need to be prepared. He'll appear at 61 degrees in the south east, so get your compass ready. He'll then disappear in the east.

Don't worry if you miss him, because he'll be visible again at 7.10am, this time for a longer seven minutes, at 10 decrees above the west before disappearing in the east.

You don't need a telescope to see Father Christmas, all you need to do is look to the east for a magical white dot streaking across the sky.

The man in red, which conveniently follows the same pathway as NASA's International Space Station, will be clearly visible to the naked eye if the weather permits it.

Keep in mind that what time Santa appears depends on where exactly you are in the country, so to increase your chances of seeing the sleigh you can download an app which tracks the International Space Station, which is the "third brightest object in the sky and easy to spot if you know when to look up". Alternatively, you can head to the Spot The Station website.

Santa's sleigh will look like a fast-moving plane, but will be much higher in the sky and be travelling thousands of miles an hour faster.

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