Viewing the International Space Station
Friday, February 15, 2008
photo courtesy of NASA
OK, I can only wish I could see a view of the ISS like this! Instead, I turned on the local news tonight and was surprised to hear that the ISS would be passing directly overhead between 6:15 and 6:22 tonight. So at 6:18 I headed out to the front sidewalk, not expecting to see much with all the lights around and the half moon shining bright and high in the sky.
Happily, I was wrong, and I spent around a minute or so watching a bright point of light zip across the sky... with an orbital period of a little over 91 minutes, it's not surprise that it passed overhead in a little over a minute. It's an incredible thought that the point of light I saw is actually between 300 and 350 km away, moving at almost 28000 km/hr... and that there are people inside going about their business of maintaining the station and performing scientific experiments. Fantastic!
JMH
