I received this as an email from John:

quote:

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Beginning this week, the International Space Station will make a series of eye-catching passes over North America."

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/24jul_spaceship2.htm?list675347

It's pretty easy to see; I caught it the last time it made passes over our continent, back in June. It's brighter than anything else in the night sky, with the exceptions of the moon and Venus. It takes several minutes to pass from horizon to horizon; though when I saw it, it "went
out" before it reached the far horizon, due to the fact that it entered Earth's shadow before reaching the horizon.

There are links in the article to sites where you can find out the exact times for your location.

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I might add by saying I saw it one night during last summer's campmeeting. Maybe I will see it again at this summer's campmeeting.

If and when you see it, let us know here by telling the location and the time you saw it.

Just saw this Daryl, I didn't think to post it here. Glad you did.

Some tips for using the "Heavens Above" site to get coordinates/times/etc. for locations in North America, or anywhere else: (that's just the one I've been using, people can certainly use the others)

1) go to http://www.heavens-above.com/

2) to be an anonymous user, click on the blue Select link at bottom center.

3) at the next page, click on your country's name

4) at the next page, type in your city, and click the "Submit" button

5) at the next page, click on the blue name of your town on the left side. There may be more than one listed -- I live in Greenville NC, and when I type in "Greenville" there are 53 choices! There's a Greenville in nearly every state, and more than one in some states, evidently.

6) at the next page, under "Satellites", click on the "10 day predictions for: ISS" link. (ISS = International Space Station)

7) the next page shows times and coordinates for the next 10 days for your location. You might want to bookmark it, so you can come back to it again without having to go through steps 1 thru 6 again.

8) click on the blue date links on the left side of the table ("25 Jul", "26 Jul", etc.) to get a sky chart showing the path of the ISS for that particular date and time in your location.

Enjoy!

(note: when looking at the magnitude numbers, bear in mind that the lower the number, the brighter the object. Venus has a magnitude of -4, the Moon's magnitude is -12.6, and the sun's magnitude is -26.72. The ISS's magnitude will vary on different passes.)

[ July 26, 2002, 12:10 AM: Message edited by: John ]

Thank you, John!

I hope I don't forget to give it a try.

Return engagement -- from Aug. 31st thru Sept. 7th (and maybe beyond). In eastern NC the ISS will appear on different days between the hours of 4:30 and 6:15 AM, thereabouts. Check the sites listed above for times and sky coordinates for your location.

For a good picture of the ISS taken from the space shuttle Atlantis, see

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020423.html

We saw two satalites in the sky at the same time last week. One was going from east to west the other seemed to be going from south to north.

They were distinctive from planets and stars besides the fact that they were moving noticeably but slowly. The light in the binoculars looked like halogen lights and there were red lights visible with both of them.

It was exciting. I have often watched little satalites sail overhead, mostly going form west to east, but these were different and slower. Possibly closer to earth than the others?