It’s a Star… it’s a Plane… It’s the ISS

Sightings Made Easy

The space station from the space shuttle Discovery. Courtesy NASA.

Do you go out and watch for crossings of the International Space Station? We do and it’s always an amazing sight to see our planet’s only habitable space station moving slowly overhead. I always say “hi” to the folks up there as they cross my sky. It’s good to know they’re up there.

Now, the ISS isn’t visible all the time, but chances are there will be a time each week when you should be able to spot it in your evening or early morning skies.  Want to know how to find out when it’s making an appearance over your location?  If you’re on Twitter, you can use Twisst — a updating page that you use to input your location; the site will then update you on the latest data on expected passes over your location. You can also go to Spaceweather.com’s Satellite Flybys site for predictions.  If that’s overloaded, check out Heaven’s Above to get your ISS passage fix. It’s definitely worth doing — there’s nothing like watching a small dot of light go slowly overhead — and knowing its the space station — to remind us that we truly are (and will always be) starfolk.