DescentBB

I was driving into work at 6:30 am, nearing "the farm", and I saw the International Space Station cruising over head in the dark sky... Awesome sight to see it and know what it is; the big, bright mother-of-all-satelites, that really moves, shining steady from horizon to horizon.

This wasn't my first sighting of the ISS, I've seen it before a few times even with a space shuttle docked to it. So I wondered if any of you folks have seen it before ?

Here's the web page to look up sightings in your home town.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/si ... index.html

I have seen it a few times too, it tracks south west to north east directly over my home town, but is seldom visible, as it needs to be in the sun while we are in shadow, so the overlap is fairly small, and infrequent.

Most recently, Emma and I were dining at Rarotonga's finest restaurant, Tamarind House, watching the sun set, and 5 minutes later the ISS cruised overhead while the last bit of orange faded from the sky. That was awesome.

I watched it almost to the horizon, before it disappeared.

It's the brightest object in the night sky after the moon, and once the 3 other US solar panels are fitted, it will actually be visible in daylight.

I haven't seen the ISS, but I have seen the shuttle fly over my house a few years ago. Quite nifty.

That is cool! I am gonna have to try to see it myself.

how do you know what to look for?

..Just like what satellites look like: a big, bright, steadily moving "dot" .. brighter than any star. Today it looked just like a single bright dot in the binocs'

With a shuttle docked on the ISS, using binocculars I could discen more of the shape as being an irregular, almost T-shaped, and it had lighter and darker regions (i.e. shadows).

I've only seen a few satellites drift by. First time was a little freaky, I'd admit, didn't recognize it for what it was right away.

ISS is close to the horizon in ATL GA right now. SW Sky very very bright and motionless.