Last Night's Clear View of International Space Station

[otohara]

Wow....what a sight!

I was at my friend's house and somehow we got into politics. My friend's hubby has been out of work for a long time and he's been listening to the dreaded psychos on Cluster Fux and Clear Channel's most famous drug addict...Gawd, what a disappointment to hear this bit of news from a guy I like and thought he was smart enough to not listen to blatant propaganda.

Anyway...my heart started racing after hearing the shocking news and I could see the conversation was going round and round...going nowhere. I decided to stop before losing yet another person in my life over politics. So I decided to leave ...

When we walked outside, my friend's neighbor said to look to wards the northern sky...It's the International Space Station
The dark skies were clear as a bell, so they were easy to spot. The main station was brighter, the one in tow looked smaller and not as bright.

As they approached and cruised over our head, they looked like gigantic snowflakes.

It was 4 minutes of awe.

In the end, I'm grateful for that conversation about fucking Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
Nothing like hearing someone defend those two assholes to motive me to walk away.


http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1236346
PHOENIX - Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane. It's the space station?

An astronomical double header is on display Thursday evening in the north sky.

At 6:14 p.m. the International Space Station & Space Shuttle Atlantis will pass in front of the North Star heading southeast. Then shortly thereafter, the ISS will be visible followed by the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

"A great time to see both objects - the space station, extremely bright with the naked eye and then some 30 seconds later following in its path is the space shuttle, a little bit dimmer" but it will still be visible to the naked eye, says Valley astronomer Dr. Sky.

He says binoculars will help -- but you still won't be able to see the space station's solar panels unless you use a telescope.

"Both of these objects are some 275 miles above your eye and above your head and making it a wonderful site in the sky, but binoculars will give you a little bit closer view."

[sarge43]

1. 6:14EST or MST? n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

2. Keep this link. It'll tell you when and where to look.

http://esa.heavens-above.com/esa/iss_step1_3.asp?CountryID=US

It's going over my head tonight at just after 5 p.m. local time. It should be pretty spectacular seeing as it'll be just about the only object visible in the sky.

[otohara]

3. MST

[Canuckistanian]

17. Depends where you are

Different place, different time.

Try this to predict where it's going to be:

http://www.n2yo.com/passes/?s=25544&tz=GMT-05:00

You'll have to change your location for it to work accurately.

[sarge43]

4. Thanks, but it's clouding up here, so NG.

I've been a space junkie for over 60 years; it'd been great to see it. *sigh

[truedelphi]

5. I am looking fo rmy binoculars right now, but it is cloudy here in

Northern California. Anyway thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Cool.

:thumbsup:

[nclib]

7. Thank you.

We just watched it and it was very cool. :thumbsup:

[marybourg]

8. 6:08 P.M. AZ time. Just a few minutes now. I'm turning off all outdoor lites. nt.

[tyedyeto]

9. Pretty cool display here in southern AZ

Just came in from seeing them. No binocs needed but if you had them, it would have been really incredible.

[tridim]

10. Just watched it pass by Denver!

I throughly enjoyed that. :)

It rose in the west, hit the apex at about 30 degrees, and set in the south . Took about 2 minutes. Both objects were very bright.

Seeing the arc develop was very surreal, it kind of gave me a new sense of how fast the Earth is spinning!

[azmouse]

11. Rats! I just read this thread 15 minutes too late!

:( I hope it was a good show.

[tridim]

12. It's a multi-day thing.. Check the tracking site!

http://esa.heavens-above.com/esa/iss_step1_3.asp?CountryID=US

[merh]

14. Thanks for the link, I know I can go out tomorrow evening

to look but I cannot get the star chart to open. x(

[me b zola]

13. I'm in Portland OR

We won't see the sky again until June. Except for those few days of 20 degree temps between now and then.

[Bitwit1234]

15. You used to be able to see it here in northern Minnesota

everynight this summer. It is about 1/3 up the sky. It starts in the western sky and goes to the left and all around the sky. Sometimes you can see a blueish glow.

[guyton]

16. great nasa site for this ...

http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States

easy to use, bookmark it!

[alfredo]

18. Saw Atlantis during the day years ago.