See the ISS fly over ...

23 points·RiderOfGiraffes··7 comments

Just a reminder - I'm sure most of you know this.

The International Space Station is only about 200 miles away, and on a clear night, when conditions are right, you can watch it fly over. It's quite impressive to point at this really bright star motoring overhead and think: There are people on that.

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Visible passes from Oxford, UK.

http://esa.heavens-above.com/esa/iss_step2.asp?Loc=Oxford...

See a graphic of where it is now, and get data for your location:

http://esa.heavens-above.com/esa/iss_step1.asp?nored=1

Wolfram Alpha can plot where it will be at a certain date and time.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=iss+on+november+17th%2C...

There are also a number of Twitter bots that can alert you to ISS passes: http://twitter.com/abovelondon (disclaimer: I wrote that one: only for London, but is weather-aware), http://orbitingfrog.com/blog/over-twitter/ (more cities), http://twitter.com/twisst (works anywhere).

For an extra treat, look just before or after the shuttle visits. You can watch them both moving in unison. STS-129 is up now, but I haven't found the time when they will be docking and undocking.

As long as you are looking at http://www.heavens-above.com/, try to find yourself a -5 to -8 Iridium flare.

Spaceweather.com can tell you when the ISS and other bright satellites are going to be passing overhead.

http://spaceweather.com/flybys/

Ah... apparently I'm going to have to wait till 28th.

Damn it, it's all cloudy here, in Eastern Europe.

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