Last night, I watched the international space station. What did you do?
I was planning on looking at it through the new telescope, but it was moving too fast. Went across the sky in about five minutes. It was about as bright as the brightest star in the sky, not as bright as Venus had been earlier. But there are people in it, just like on Venus!
The Heavens Above site is very cool. Personalized star charts etc. telling you when and where the ISS will be. I went outside with my mother-in-law and wife and told them it would pass right above the edge of the handle of the Big Dipper, and right through the dipper of the Little Dipper, and sure enough, there it went, at the time the site said it would. Nifty.
I saw it for about 7 1/2 minutes; at maximum altitude (only 389km away), it seemed as bright as a plane, but solid white instead of flashing. It disappeared into the haze over Kitchener (at over 1000km away) instead of reaching the horizon, but when it disappeared it wasn't falling very fast. So, from where I was (at 9:50 to 10:00pm) it passed below Libra, below Lyra, and through Pegasus.
I'd hoped to see it Thursday night, when it was considerably brighter (-0.4 magnitude, or 2.5 times as bright as last night!) and passing directly overhead through Draco, but it was heavily overcast.
Yes, heavens-above.com does rock. I'll be keeping a browser tab on it for the next two weeks while the ISS is visible from North America.
"I followed the ISS with my 10-inch at home one night."
