Space Station Spotting

[steve_bmw]

the pass last night was amazing, so clear, its the first time I have actually seen it I was looking at my ipad with the sky map when I spotted the space station, lucky timing as its only visible for 45 seconds.

[XM5ER]

I saw an amazing flypast on Friday just gone. This time I could see the automated transfer vehicle trailing the ISS by a short distance (much fainter but still clearly visible). Apparently it dock tomorrow night so may be worth having a nosy if it's in your vicinity.

[steve_bmw]

Just watched it pass over, pretty amazing to see.

[Eric Mc]

I have become a bit on an ISS spotting addict over the past six or so years. It was fun to watch Space Shuttles chasing and undocked from the ISS. Sadly, that is all ended now but, as has been said, sometimes you can see unmanned supply vessels chasing the ISS.

[dickymint]

Eric Mc said:

I have become a bit on an ISS spotting addict over the past six or so years. It was fun to watch Space Shuttles chasing and undocked from the ISS. Sadly, that is all ended now but, as has been said, sometimes you can see unmanned supply vessels chasing the ISS.

Same here - just watched a really good pass whilst out looking for Perseid shooting stars - saw one beauty before clouds came over. Staying up hoping for clear skies though.

[CrutyRammers]

Apologies if repost, this seems like the most likely thread for it. I know we've had the live stream from inside the ISS posted before, but I'd not seen this one. It's the High Definition Earth Viewing stream, live views of the earth from the ISS. Simply stunning on a large monitor.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload

There are a couple of different views it switches between, and you won't see anything if it's dark!

[jmorgan]

^^^^

Forgot about that. Be interesting at night over densely populates, Pacific at the moment.

[RegMolehusband]

That was fascinating. I just watched it go overhead whilst watching the live streaming video through the open office door.

[TTmonkey]

Could someone tell me when he next good opertunity to see this will be? Many thanks

[RegMolehusband]

Well this is quite handy

http://www.isstracker.com/

but I don't know if you'll see it again later as it could be completely in the Earth's shadow.

[dickymint]

TTmonkey said:

Could someone tell me when he next good opertunity to see this will be? Many thanks

For Shrewsbury........

[central]

Back tonight at 20:09 and plenty of good passes over the next couple of weeks.

[durbster]

When I was about 18, I very nearly crashed my Mum's Vauxhall Astra 1.7D because of the ISS.

I was driving along a dark, quiet country lane and saw an unusual object moving across the sky directly in front of me. It was too slow to be a shooting star but too fast to be a plane. Being young and impressionable, I concluded it was an alien craft.

Thankfully I then realised that while I had been staring in awe at the sky, I had drifted across the road and was about to crash into a hedge. I just managed to stop in time, then got out to watch the UFO disappear into the night sky.

The belief that I had seen a UFO remained with me until about five years ago - when I realised it was the ISS.

[Eric Mc]

You must be quite young then. The first elements of the ISS were launched in 1998 but it was less than half as bright as it is today.

[durbster]

It must have been between 1998-2000, as I got my own car after that and stopped seeing the girl that lived out that way.

Don't tell me it actually was a UFO.

[Mikey G]

May have been Mir...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir

[Eric Mc]

That's what I was thinking.

[durbster]

Ah, interesting. I thought it must have been ISS but didn't know about Mir.

All I know is that it was a white dot moving silently and rapidly across the night sky.

[Eric Mc]

Mir would have followed a very similar track to the one the ISS does. I wasn't really watching out for Mir during the time it was up there even though I could have seen it if I had looked. Indeed, all the previous Soviet era space stations i.e the Salyuts, would have all followed similar orbital tracks.

Skylab didn't come as far north as far as I know.

[durbster]

I thought the ISS was the first space station big enough to see without a telescope to be honest.

I didn't really know much about Mir but I can see that it was a bit of a beast. It may well have been that