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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Neil Shaw

How to spot Santa soaring across the sky on Christmas morning

Santa Claus will be visible in the skies across the UK early on Christmas morning as he heads home after a busy night of delivering presents to all the boys and girls.

Santa's sleigh will race across the UK between 6am and 7am, meaning all the excitable children waking up early to get to their presents should be able to catch sight of him.

The sleigh will be visible for up to four minutes and will be fairly high in the sky, meaning even if you are in a built-up area you should be able to spot him - so long as it isn't too cloudy on December 25.

If you can get somewhere clearer, with dark skies, you'll maximise your chance of spotting the sleigh - but it should be easy to spot if the conditions are good,

Anyone who tries to tell you the clear, bright-white spark streaking across the sky early on Christmas morning is actually the International Space Station is definitely a Grinch, and will be getting nothing but coal this year.

For those in the South - around Exeter and London, Bristol, Belfast and even the Midlands - Santa will be visible for four minutes from 6.53am. His sleigh will rise up to 51 degrees above the horizon and he will streak from the south west towards the east before disappearing.

Further south, down in Cornwall, Santa will arrive a minute earlier.

As you head further north the timings get a little later. For those in Hull, Cardiff and Edinburgh the arrival will start at 6.54am - will last three minutes and the 'sleigh' will be a little lower in the sky at around 20 to 34 degrees.

In terms of height, the horizon is 0 degrees and directly overhead is 90.

If you want exact timings, locations and heights you can get all the information on the NASA website.

You can use a compass on your phone to make sure you are watching the skies in the South West, and an ISS app available from your app store will also give you an alert when the sleigh is on its way.

Good luck!

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