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Comment by kokey | Hacker News Reader

I used to have a cron job that ran a little perl script that screen scraped heavens-above once a day and then set up 'at' jobs to send me an SMS when a visible pass of the ISS or an Iridium flare was going to show up over me in the next 5 minutes. Was a great party trick at times and I got to see some great flares and also saw the ISS and a space shuttle a few miles from each other.

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This is going to sound weird, but... One of the best nights of my life, I was on the beach at Bellows in the middle of the night with this Israeli chick the week after I got back from my last tour in Iraq. We were laying there in the sand, doing what people do on the beach at night and talking about the stars and the universe and smoking dope. I was just talking about the launch of one of the shuttles about half an hour before, and right there over our heads the ISS tracked across the sky with the shuttle right behind it, preparing to dock. I thought it was such an odd configuration and impossibly bright for anything smaller, so I checked my phone and sure enough, that's what it was. I'd give anything for more nights like that. Just the most incredible coincidence, perfect timing. Perfect night.

Really cool. My dad used to make me go around to teachers before a big meteor shower with documentation as to why this year's shower was "gonna be the big one" and me being out of school the next day should be an excused abcense.

That translates to at least ten summers of one night a year under the stars during a shower. Your story reminded me of a time when what must have been a school bus of space dust burned across the entire sky in front of our scout troop. Thanks Dad. Space is crazy.

I wonder if it was the 1998 Leonids. I got about 25 people from my college dorm to drive to the beach that night. It was the night of the fireballs. Another great memory.

That's a beautiful memory for me too! A lot of us gathered in the college ground and spent 1-2 hours watching the beautiful spectacle. I started to count, and then after sometime just gave up the counting. Never have got another chance after 1998 to see so many in one night.

We caught that with binocualrs. Mind-blowing that we could clearly see the shape of the Shuttle and the ISS. Those are big things.

The "Sky Guide" iPhone app will send you push alerts for Iridium flares, as well as when the ISS will be visible.

The app in Google's Play Store by the same name is apparently a different app by a different company.

The website that this HN post links to has their own app called Heavens-Above which is free and helps "identify lights in the night sky, predict Iridium flares, ISS and sat passes."

trying to envision said parties

Rooftop parties in the city, drinking beer from bottles, strings of vintage lightbulbs, people wearing plaid, taking out your phone to say “Hey look at this!” and pointing out a spot in the sky where an iridium flare streaks across while everyone gasps “Wwwooww!!” High fives

The University of Sydney Physics Society (physoc) used to have some great rooftop parties (in the late 80s). Invariably someone would raid the dry ice freezer and put it in the empty bottles and screw the lids on to make "depth charges". These would get dropped over the edge and go off with a resounding boom sometime later, scaring the wits out of anyone at ground level. University Security would invariably arrive to find everything peaceful at ground level and so sign of the party above.

That's one of those things that wouldn't fly at universities these days.

At least in NZ, all the traditional student events and activities have been slowly neutered over the past decade or so, to ensure that nobody gets hurt, and that everything is tame and hurts nobody's sensibilities.

I was about to prove you wrong by demonstrating that couch fires are still a fun student tradition in NZ, but googling shows the very opposite. https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/heat-out-couch-burning.

Only 11 fires in the first three months of last year, a massive 65% drop on the previous low of 31 for the period.

Every time I saw a couch fire at Canterbury, the fire brigade arrived shortly to put it out.

They were definitely frowned upon. Especially when the couches were stolen from the halls of residence and burned on Ilam fields.

Then you put your phone back in your pocket, laugh dramatically, and close with "And that's the last time NASA messes with me."

Sounds like my experience in Melbourne. It was the plaid that really hit the spot.

I'M IN

I've wowed "normal" people at outdoor parties by "showing" them the ISS, they knew about the it but have never seen it. If I were more charming and better prepared I could also claim I'm an alien, and my spaceship is up there, here let me turn on the headlights, timing it to an Iridium flare.

But people usually say isn't that (the ISS) a plane? And you'd have to explain that plane lights blink.

— You want to see a party trick?

— Yeah!

— Let's see… hmm, not today.

I’d love to subscribe to this!

The Android app 'ISS detector' can alert your phone when there's a flare (or the ISS) about to assist.

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