Opportunities to View the International Space Station

[JohnRPollard]

If you have good visibility, there will be excellent opportunities to view the International Space Station this weekend and coming week. You can go to this website and plug in your location, and it will tell you where and when to look:

Human Space Flight (HSF) - Realtime Data

Some info about the ISS:

The largest spacecraft ever built, the station also is the most reflective. It will be brighter than most stars at dawn and dusk, appearing as a solid, glowing light, slowly traversing the predawn or evening sky. It is visible when lit by the sun while the ground below is not in full daylight. It moves across the sky too fast for conventional telescopes, but a good set of binoculars can enhance the viewing experience, even revealing some detail of the station's structure.

The station circles Earth every 90 minutes. It is 357 feet long, about the length of a football field including the end zones, and 45 feet tall. Its reflective solar arrays are 240 feet wide, a wingspan greater than that of a jumbo jet, and have a total surface area of more than 38,000 square feet.

An international crew of six astronauts, including American flight engineer Michael Barratt, is aboard the complex conducting research and continuing its assembly. Other crew members are from Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan.

Happy 4th of July!

[lbdavis]

Thanks, JRP.

I was really excited about seeing the SS this weekend. I went to NASA's site and it looks like those boys are having a little fun with our weather:



I don't know if you all heard, but the weather su(#$ my @$$ up here!