Tracking the International Space Station

Its a rare night when I'm relaxing in my outdoor hot tub that I don't see at least one satellite or shooting star. The last couple of days I got curious as to just what I was watching overhead and started to do a little research into it. One of the things I found was a page detailing the track of the International Space Station, (ISS), which just happened to have a track going nearly directly over my house tonight.

I went out at the appointed hour, worried that it was in the twilight hours so I might not see much, but BAM! You couldn't miss it. I watched it for 3 or 4 minutes, which covered its flight from roughly over north Texas to southern Ontario, Canada. Its really bright, and moves amazingly fast, and I thought it was pretty cool and that some folks here might be interested in seeing it as well.

If you'd like to take a look you can find out more about it here:

N2YO.com satellite tracking

That page should pick up your IP address which will give it the rough location to show what is visible in your area. If you then select the "5 day predictions" it will show you the time and track to look for it.

And to keep the topic on Vegas, there are a few passes over that area in the next few days, including one tonight.

Just remember to wave when it goes by so the NSA knows they are fooling nobody.

Seen it tonite, Friday. Daughter came and picked up her 2 kids and said it was going to go over the house and we had five minutes to get outside. sure as sure it flew over like clock work. nice smooth no jerky or blinking lights. We passed around the binoculars. Nice night for it too here in MI.

Very cool info, thanks for the heads up, gonna keep an eye out for it here in Va.

J

We watched it fly overhead a few days ago (just north of Dallas). Our weatherman had given us the approximate location and the exact time and sure enough, there it was. Looks like a moving star. Very cool.

- Linda in TX

Those on the east coast may have a chance to see it tonight, provided the weather cooperates. This is the predicted track:



This isn't quite as bright as the one I wrote about yesterday, but at magnitude -2 it still says it should be a "good visible pass". To give you some comparison, the brightest star is Sirius with a magnitude of -1.6. Venus is about -5, and the moon is about -12. Yesterdays ISS pass that I saw was something like -4.

It will look just like a bright moving star. If you see something blinking, its probably an airplane and not a satellite, (although some satellites can blink, such as if they are tumbling). And it moves pretty fast; its taking 7 minutes to go from the gulf of Mexico to the border of Maine and Canada. If you are on the northern end of the route and see it suddenly blink out that's because it will have been eclipsed by the earths shadow over Newfoundland.

Happy watching

ISS Detector is a free Android app that tracks and gives notifications of visible instances of the International Space Station, Hubble, comets, and so on, and does so based on your GPS position. It works very well. The pro version has no ads, and I bought it mostly to support the developer.

No chance in hell seeing it on the east coast currently(mid-atlantic anyway), it's rained for the past week. Hopefully next week will be more conducive for watching.

J