Just saw the ISS sailing through the night sky, and the best thing was that the kids are still young enough to believe that its a sleigh 
Sweet timing Santa!! (ISS=international space station if it doesn’t automatically click with some. such as myself.) lol
The ISS can see see some BLF members too. :bigsmile:
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/22440?page=120#comment-703491
We just saw it in Leicester.
The kids were very impressed that Santa flies at over 17000 mph…
Lol.
Also, the kids held flashlights that I built using knowledge garnered from this store, to get to the end of the garden to watch “him”.
I go out and watch for it regularly, and point it out to anyone who happens to be passing on the sidewalk.
It’s kind of sad how rarely people recognize what I’m talking about.
Well, there’s looking out, and there’s looking back: http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/
The ISS orbit is about 250 miles above the Earth — so if we could see the ISS in the DSCOVR images it would be a little dot just barely outside the visible atmosphere.
(Check back in exactly six months when it’s summer in the Northern hemisphere and we’ll see the Arctic instead of the Antarctic)
You can see it with the naked eye?
It looks like the ISS is going to be too far south to see in WA for a while.
Tracking site, click observation tab to see the best time to look for it.
ISS tracking
Handy link to check when the ISS is visible from any location.
Just watched it pass over, and waved…
I use an app called ISS Detector that alerts when the next sighting is due.
Also saw some fireflies signalling, every 4 seconds.
Cool white, very high CRI and very low lumens.
I keep meaning to have a look for it, I wonder what detail if any could be see with powerful binoculars, probably none as it’s travelling too fast?
You can. But you need to know what you are looking for. Essentially it looks like a star absolutely hauling ass west-to-east across the sky. It is only visible for around 20 seconds. Then it’s gone for 90min. Mid to late last year it orbited regularly over southern New Zealand. Very cool. Just don’t expect to see any detail. Just a fast moving light.
It’s not that large as we know, is it the reflection of the sun we’re seeing?
You could try tracking it with a telescope. But it will be essentially impossible. Too fast, and zero time to sight it. It’s gone after only 20-30 seconds from horizon to horizon.
Sure is.
Next sighting here will be for 4m 24s at 19:18:05 on Saturday.
From 263 degrees West to 348 degrees NNW.
It’s at 400,000 metres altitude. Unsurprisingly I could not see any definition with 8x binoculars.
Get the app and check it out !
(No affiliation with me)
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I watched it over here in Germany last summer. But you really need the help of ISS-detector or else, the timeframe is really short.
Catch a pass close to 90 degrees overhead, when the air is clear (being up on a mountain helps) — you can see it go from horizon to zenith to horizon and the ISS will be visible for several minutes.
17,000 miles an hour, so about 280 miles a minute.
And so looking up from the ground (as I said best on a clear night from a high place) — you can see the ISS appear and disappear ‘over the horizon’ a thousand miles away.
Brightest thing in the sky, with those big solar cell and heat radiator panels unfolded. Even brighter (sigh) when a Shuttle was docked there for a while, and when the Shuttle was nearby the two of them were a bright pair moving together.