How Many Here "Spot The Station"?

[TopRamen]

For a few weeks now, I have been spotting the ISS. I don't know why I did not take up this Hobby sooner, as it gives me a great feeling everytime I see it with the Naked Eye. I have a Celestron AstroMaster 114 Telescope, but that is woefully inadequate to get a close up look.(Moving way too fast.) Still, just going out and seeing it, knowing what it is, and that there are People living on it,... I find inspirational.
I had my 8th sighting tonight. The Weather is not always conducive to viewing the Heavens here in my Neck of the Woods.

Here's where you can see it too.:https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Enjoy.

P.S. On my third Sighting, there was another Satelite in its path, and I was able to watch it correct its Course, or, atleast that's what appeared to be happening. There was a blinking Object, inline with the Station, yet it was static in its position. It was in the Path of the ISS, but by the time the ISS had made it to that Point in the Sky, the Object had disappeared. It was approximately half as bright as the station, and I at first,picked it up through my Peripherial Vision. It blinked 6 times, then, as the ISS was nearly to it, it was no longer visible. It was about the time that the Resupply was supposed to happen. That's what got me watching the ISS in the first place.
I keep hoping to see some Anomolous Event like that again, and now find myself looking at where the Station is going while it passes overhead.

 

[WillMarchant]

You'll like "Iridium flares," too. https://heavens-above.com/ is a good source of predictions.


And while you're watching the ISS you should listen for the amateur radio stations that are on board. Http://www.ariss.net/ and https://www.ariss.org/

 

[TopRamen]

You'll like "Iridium flares," too. https://heavens-above.com/ is a good source of predictions.


And while you're watching the ISS you should listen for the amateur radio stations that are on board. Http://www.ariss.net/ and https://www.ariss.org/

Thank You!

 

[TALON]

Yup, every now and then will go to site and watch it fly over, way cool!

 

[Nathan]

I was also going to mention Iridium flares. They are really cool to see. They are only visible very briefly but are very bright.

 

[BEC]

I go out and watch it go over from time to time...though often the conditions are not too conducive here in the Pacific Northwet. In fact, there's a pass due in an hour. It might be clear enough tonight.....

Added later: it was clear enough for the first half of the pass. The ISS disappeared into the moonlit clouds a little past the zenith on this pass.

 

[chadrog]

I like watching it pass over, I get the email alerts from spot the station dot com. I wave every time.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Yep, I go out and see it from time to time... it's pretty neat... It'd be a lot more inspirational if it didn't cost so much and if there were actually doing really worthwhile stuff up there... still it's cool, though.

A few years ago, we watched it from out in the swimming pool... VERY cool! The shuttle had just undocked the day before, and was maneuvering away from it in its nearly identical orbit before doing the retro-burn to come home. The shuttle was about 10-20 seconds ahead of it in its orbit, on an identical track... both appeared as bright stars just before sunset in the western sky, flew toward the south to an azimuth about 30 degrees above the horizon, and then faded orange to red and then "winked out" as they passed into Earth's shadow before they disappeared over the southern horizon... that's always cool to watch, knowing that those guys are seeing a sunset on the station as it's getting dimmer and dimmer from your vantage point here on the ground, as it's passing through the "airglow layer" light (light bent around Earth's limb by the atmosphere) and then finally winks out when it flies into Earth's shadow proper...

I then floated on my back in the pool, and totally relaxed, and just gazed up into the empty sky... VERY relaxing... then later I watched an Iridium satellite fly over, almost due north to south, as it went almost directly overhead... then it winked out just past zenith, at about a 70 degree angle above the southern horizon. It was followed a couple minutes or so later by its twin satellite, which follows the same orbit a few minutes behind the first...

Floating "weightless" in the pool looking up into the empty sky full of stars... closest I'll ever come to being an astronaut...

Later! OL JR

 

[Winston]

The best dedicated sat track app and it's free:

https://www.heavensat.ru/english/

 

[Davidtmp]

Spot the Station isn't very reliable for me....usually get little notice and miss them. But I do go out to see it when I can and I catch the email. Need to try and use some of the other sites listed above. I tend to do too many things at a time, and keep adding things.

 

[NAR29996]

I've been doing it off and on since I first saw Skylab back in the day. I used to have a DOS program that would track satellites of interest (to me).

My most memorable view was during the first ATV flight. Seeing the ATV followed shortly by the ISS was really cool. Don't have much of an opportunity to look now, living in Houston.

 

[luke strawwalker]

I miss the old J-track 3D program... that was COOL...

Later! OL JR

 

[TopRamen]

I like watching it pass over, I get the email alerts from spot the station dot com. I wave every time.

I wave too! Did'nt want to mention it before, but hey, if I'm not the only one...

 

[adrienwapkaplet]

Actually TopRamen.. your comment about the ISS from a different post made me look it up. My 4 yo son and Father in law went out that night for our first sighting.

 

[TopRamen]

Actually TopRamen.. your comment about the ISS from a different post made me look it up. My 4 yo son and Father in law went out that night for our first sighting.

Cool! Hello fellow Vermonter. Gonna be pretty clear Skies here tonight from the looks of it.
Oh, and my Son thinks it's pretty cool too. When I first showed him the Station, he was quite surprised when I told him that People live up there, and that that is their Home. Really lit up his Imagination.

 

[brianc]

I wave too! Did'nt want to mention it before, but hey, if I'm not the only one...

There's a lot us waving! https://www.isswave.org/

On my Android phone, I use the ISS Detector and SatTrack (was once called heavens above) apps

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.runar.issdetector
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heavensabove

My favorite/most memorable spotting was with my son in our backyard. We saw
the ISS, Shuttle and HST in a nice train all within a few minutes of each other.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

I like spotting the station and other satellites, like the Hubble. If I am going camping, I usually print out the passes for the area where I will be.

It always amazes people when you ask them, "Have you ever seen the space station? No? Well, it's going to come up right over there in 30 seconds."

 

[adrienwapkaplet]

Oh, and my Son thinks it's pretty cool too. When I first showed him the Station, he was quite surprised when I told him that People live up there, and that that is their Home. Really lit up his Imagination.

Well, I'm betting my young son believes there are Kerbals living up there living with everybody.

 

[chadrog]

Just passed me, headed towards the southeast. Hope it's nice and clear there like it is here!

 

[TopRamen]

My 9th Sighting tonight. I also spotted another Satelite that is orders of Magnitude lower than the ISS. I always see that one in conjuntion, but don't know what it is. I've seen it from my Location every Night, right before the ISS Sightings. It typically has a transverse Trajectory, and appears about 2 Minutes before the ISS.

 

[powderburner]

Mostly a couple years ago, when the kids were younger.

Now they are "too cool" to get excited about some dumb ol' space station. I have not checked it out myself in a long time, but when viewing conditions are right it is very impressive. I highly recommend everybody to try it.

 

[VARocketflyer]

For a few weeks now, I have been spotting the ISS. I don't know why I did not take up this Hobby sooner, as it gives me a great feeling everytime I see it with the Naked Eye. I have a Celestron AstroMaster 114 Telescope, but that is woefully inadequate to get a close up look.(Moving way too fast.) Still, just going out and seeing it, knowing what it is, and that there are People living on it,... I find inspirational.
I had my 8th sighting tonight. The Weather is not always conducive to viewing the Heavens here in my Neck of the Woods.

Here's where you can see it too.:https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Enjoy.

P.S. On my third Sighting, there was another Satelite in its path, and I was able to watch it correct its Course, or, atleast that's what appeared to be happening. There was a blinking Object, inline with the Station, yet it was static in its position. It was in the Path of the ISS, but by the time the ISS had made it to that Point in the Sky, the Object had disappeared. It was approximately half as bright as the station, and I at first,picked it up through my Peripherial Vision. It blinked 6 times, then, as the ISS was nearly to it, it was no longer visible. It was about the time that the Resupply was supposed to happen. That's what got me watching the ISS in the first place.
I keep hoping to see some Anomolous Event like that again, and now find myself looking at where the Station is going while it passes overhead.

I have been using the link you mentioned above for a bit over a year and it works quite well for me in my area (south-central VA). If the skies are clear and I don't have something else pressing going on, I try to catch it every time and bring someone with me who hasn't seen it if I can. Finally had a chance to bring my 18 year-old son with me last night (they are all very busy you know) and it made a beautiful pass almost directly overhead and a bit over 3 minutes in duration. He normally isn't much into science or space stuff, but we wound up staying out there for quite a while after it passed as he was asking questions about all sorts of things we were seeing. There was some light pollution where we were, but during that time we still got enough of an improvement in night vision that the Milky Way kept getting clearer and clearer. One of these days I want to be at a higher elevation with as close to zero artificial light around as possible and enough time to get full night vision before spotting it.

Mark

 

[TheSamurai]

I signed up for it but have yet to do it. For the first while it seemed it was always very early in the morning. Like 2 a.m. and more recently it has been passing earlier in the evening but I don't get the email in time. I don't check my email that much during the day. I'll have to try out one of the apps suggested above.

 

[chadrog]

If any others here like nerdy space stuff on their smart phones (like me), there's a cool app available called "Night Sky". Point your phone at the sky and it will name stars, planets, constellations, satellites, and shows the ISS moving around in real time. It's pretty cool, I think it was only two bucks.

 

[daveyfire]

We were grilling last night and saw an Iridium flare, totally unplanned. Luckily, all of my roommates are aerospace nerds, so we enjoyed it a lot

 

[jcato]

I signed up for it but have yet to do it. For the first while it seemed it was always very early in the morning. Like 2 a.m. and more recently it has been passing earlier in the evening but I don't get the email in time. I don't check my email that much during the day. I'll have to try out one of the apps suggested above.

'Sam', go investigate

https://www.heavens-above.com/

... as they'll give you a 10 day look-ahead for your site (actually, you can set up as many viewing locations as you want). Makes planning for a viewing a whole lot easier.

For the others:

Been watching the ISS for a year or two now - using 'heavens-above' - but had a new first here the first of the month: over a 6 day period (Aug 3 - 8), I saw the station *8* times - and, on the 4th, that was 3 times in one day (one morning, two evening). Backing up to the evening of the 3rd, that was 4 times in a 25 hour period. Several of these were in the -2 to -3 magnitude range, so they were quite luminous.

Always enjoyable,

-- john.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

'Sam', go investigate

https://www.heavens-above.com/

... as they'll give you a 10 day look-ahead for your site (actually, you can set up as many viewing locations as you want). Makes planning for a viewing a whole lot easier.

For the others:

Been watching the ISS for a year or two now - using 'heavens-above' - but had a new first here the first of the month: over a 6 day period (Aug 3 - 8), I saw the station *8* times - and, on the 4th, that was 3 times in one day (one morning, two evening). Backing up to the evening of the 3rd, that was 4 times in a 25 hour period. Several of these were in the -2 to -3 magnitude range, so they were quite luminous.

Always enjoyable,

-- john.

Heavens Above is what I have used in the past too. I signed up for Spot the Station, but Heavens Above makes it easier to plan ahead, especially if you are going to be camping for a week in a place with clear, dark skies.

 

[RodRocket]

I was attending a camp-out in south central kansas over the past weekend and saturday night we were checking out a night vision scope a fellow camper had brought out, and I happened to be using them at the time and was checking out all the stars and occasional passing plane when someone next to me spotted a 'plane' heading darn near right at us heading south east and I looked at it through the scope and told them it wasn't a plane because it didn't have any nav lights flashing. That was when some one said it was the ISS and we got to see it for quite awhile before it faded into the earth shadow. The guy next to me was watching it through the scope and followed it until it went out of sight.

Pretty cool, I hadn't seen anything like that before and now will be even more interested in it.

See ya,
Rod

 

[jcato]

Heavens Above is what I have used in the past too. I signed up for Spot the Station, but Heavens Above makes it easier to plan ahead, especially if you are going to be camping for a week in a place with clear, dark skies.

(Just got back from driving down the road to view another pass (we're out in the country -- plenty of dark sky, but an open field to the west is good for low/semi-low passes) - pretty good - minus 2.3 magnitude - horizon to shadow at 41d elev) - Better one tomorrow night - nearly full pass at 88d elev (i.e. right overhead) and -3.3 mag.

Wanted to also mention for all about www.isstracker.com - a real-time, moving map display of the ISS - shows the 'horizon' around the station (i.e. what *they* see as the earth's horizon from onboard the station - but also delimits the area on the ground of those of us here on Earth who can see the pass). Check this site out - a decent adjunct to heavens-above.

-- john.

 

[luke strawwalker]

I have been using the link you mentioned above for a bit over a year and it works quite well for me in my area (south-central VA). If the skies are clear and I don't have something else pressing going on, I try to catch it every time and bring someone with me who hasn't seen it if I can. Finally had a chance to bring my 18 year-old son with me last night (they are all very busy you know) and it made a beautiful pass almost directly overhead and a bit over 3 minutes in duration. He normally isn't much into science or space stuff, but we wound up staying out there for quite a while after it passed as he was asking questions about all sorts of things we were seeing. There was some light pollution where we were, but during that time we still got enough of an improvement in night vision that the Milky Way kept getting clearer and clearer. One of these days I want to be at a higher elevation with as close to zero artificial light around as possible and enough time to get full night vision before spotting it.

Mark

I'd love to see it outside of Yellowstone...

Man, the sky out there-- simply freakin' AMAZING!!!!

Later! OL JR