ISS about to fly over SW to NE... about 9:00 PM it goes fast...

If you have clear skies go out and take a look. It will be tracking from near Atlanta to almost right over NYC but you shuld be able to see it from most anywhere in the east or NE... about 10 minutes.
My favorite iPhone APP is ISS Spotter. We saw it last night but it is too cloudy here tonight.
It is about the size of a football field, travels 9x faster than a bullet, circles the globe about every 95 minutes... go out and look, here it will be at about a 70 degree angle. IT will be the brightest thing in the sky.
 
Get ISS Spotter. It is free and cool... go look!
 
Julien

Is over Mexico now, going between Atlanta and Macon, just west of Charlotte, just west of Richmond, almost over D.C., right over New JErsey and NYC, east of Vermont and Maine. Already halfway over the gulf of Mexico as I typed this... will go just east of New Orleans... like now.
 
J

Is in north Atlantic off Maine coast now... so fast. I wish were so fast... actually over Halifax now.
 
 
 

Sometimes when you look up at night you can see the moon too.

Thanks jbow. Will be taking the little ones out tonight to see this.

I'm thinking you are joking so I don't want to seem pedantic. But here's a basic explanation. 
 
The viewing opportunities are the result of angles of incidence and reflection.
 
You need the placement of the sun, the ISS, and yourself to all be in the right place at the right time.
 
If you lay on your back and star gaze right at, and just after, sunset you can observe dozens of satellite reflections streaking across the sky. It seems random, but I suppose you can learn which ones they are because the ones you see have to part of the incidence and reflection coincidence and that is predictable. The ones that don't reflect light down towards you simply *fall* by your particular location unnoticed.
 
I'm still curious about why the ISS is the brightest thing in the sky. Maybe it is because it is the most massive satellite that is up there?
 
best regards,
mike

Wow!
 
Thanks.

Of course none of the satellites or the ISS pass on the same exact orbit each time. The ISS is easy to see when the conditions are all correct.  The Iridium satellites are more "fleeting" in what they do..... hence they are called flares.... again their solar arrays are reflecting the sunlight to the earth but the "spot" they cast on the earth is smaller....closer in size to 30 mile diameter..... and traveling at 18,000 mph so if you are in it, it's very bright but it lasts only a few seconds as the spot of light passes your location.
 
You can many times see the satellite coming as a very faint spot of moving light..... then as the cone of light hits your location it flares up and down literally in 3 to 8 seconds and it's gone.  The closer you are to the center of the cone on the ground the brighter it is..... These are mostly visible anywhere from soon after sunset to around 11 pm and then again in the 3 to 4 hrs before sunrise.... the angles are best closer to the sunset/rise for a nice bright viewing....
 
The ISS generally keeps the same brightness throughout it's pass..... which can last from a minute or less to several minutes....
 
Then of course, there are all the other satellites which are also visible.  I often see them when camping. Laying on a lounge chair under the open, dark sky as the fire is dying and the sky is clear..... they are visible as dim, but fast moving, non-blinking lights on a straight path in the start field. Jets and other aircraft have blinking lights on them that is easily visible to ground observers. The satellites are the non-blinking objects..... and there are over 3000 of them up there so seeing one is just a matter of being patient on any given clear dark night.

Do you have sun spots Craig?  Oh and.. was the fun there?
 

The family & I saw it last evening for a few minutes and it was quite impressive.....the children were excited to see it too.
Thanks again Julien.