Space Station Over TC: Oct 16th - 25th - 2009/10/16 17:15
Did you know that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) with your naked eyes?
Below are the predicted flyovers of the ISS over the college's Rogers Observatory for the next few days. We've had a great series of passes over the past month, but as the Station's orbit precesses (moves over time) flyovers will come in the middle of the day, or the middle of the night, when we can't see it with the naked eye.
The passes tomorrow morning (Saturday) and a week from this Sunday (Oct 25th) are particularly bright. (Astronomers measure brightness by "Magnitude", abbreviated "Mag" on the chart. The lower the number, the brighter the object. And yes, confusingly, the scale goes into negative numbers for the really bright objects.)
If you would like to customize the chart for your own location, or if you would like a listing of all the OTHER satellites you can see, check out the German Space Agency website: www.Heavens-Above.com.
The ISS is in low-Earth orbit, with an altitude of about 400 km / 240 miles above. The ISS now has a permanent crew of 6 people, and when it is joined by the Space Shuttle there are a baker's dozen folks on board.
The ISS is by far the largest structure yet built in space, and is larger than a 747. It's solar panels, in particular, are very reflective and make the ISS very obvious as it passes across the sky.
We can see the ISS whenever it's passing overhead just after sunset or before sunrise, an event that happens over a period of days, every 7-8 weeks or so. (The ISS passes over TC a couple of times a day, but we can't see it if it is the middle of the day, when the Sun is too bright - or in the middle of the night, when the ISS is not illuminated by the Sun and is in the Earth's shadow.)
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