Before the 14-year old Mir space station is ditched due to a lack of funding, be sure to catch a glimpse of it in Furness skies.

If you look high towards the south on Tuesday you should be able to see the belaguered piece of space hardware moving across the heavens at 16:48 and again at 18:22.

If the clouds are blocking the view you can try again on Wedsnesday at 16.58.

Far from the slick space palaces imagined by Arthur C.

Clarke, 2001 may go down in the Earth's space anals as the year goverments' space station ambitions were brought down to Earth.

Mir, which was almost lost in 1997 when a cosmonaut accidentally disconnected a plug, will be destroyed because Russia no longer has the resources to keep it running.

A private US-Russian company, MirCorp, had planned to turn the space station into a 'space hotel' but failed to raise the necessary funds.

Mir has been unmanned since August.

In the coming weeks, Russia's space agency will be rocketing fuel to the station for the last time to give it enough momentum to send it back to Earth.

Precise dates have not been set, but space officials were quoted as saying the Progress supply rocket would be launched on 18 January and Mir would crash to Earth on 27 or 28 February.

On Tuesday 9th there will be especially dark skies because of a lunar eclipse.

The Furness Astro Society will meet at the observatory from 6pm to take in the sight.

Check out www.furness-astro-society.org.uk for full details.