Here's a pretty neat website, it allows you to put in your location and then tells you when the international space station will be overhead, it shows the path, the brightness of it @ that moment, and for how long the pass will last. It also displays the direction in the sky in which you should be looking. It lists for you a weeks worth of viewing data for your area.
Tonight for northern minnesota it will appear @ 7:40:57 (7:40pm & 57 seconds) starting in the WSW sky, peaking in the SSE sky and finally exiting from view in the ENE sky; the entire pass will last 5 minutes & 37 seconds and will be in full brightness, the brightness scale appears exactly like a cell phones signal strength, showing 1-4 bars depending on reflection from the sun. It was raining here last night but if the skies clear I'll be looking for it tonight
The ISS can be viewed with the naked eye as it's very bright and only 250 miles from earth, but even a moderately priced telescope would heighten the experience, a more expensive telescope with the ability to track moving objects would maximize each viewing.
Here's the link:
http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php?
You can even elect to see what the astronauts are viewing @ the moment by seeing exactly where they are over the earth, just click on the 'Home' link at the top of the page. Right now they're directly over Yemen.
This is a great chance to share an experience with kids, they probably won't even have enough time to get bored as these passes only last about 6 minutes.
Tonight for northern minnesota it will appear @ 7:40:57 (7:40pm & 57 seconds) starting in the WSW sky, peaking in the SSE sky and finally exiting from view in the ENE sky; the entire pass will last 5 minutes & 37 seconds and will be in full brightness, the brightness scale appears exactly like a cell phones signal strength, showing 1-4 bars depending on reflection from the sun. It was raining here last night but if the skies clear I'll be looking for it tonight
The ISS can be viewed with the naked eye as it's very bright and only 250 miles from earth, but even a moderately priced telescope would heighten the experience, a more expensive telescope with the ability to track moving objects would maximize each viewing.
Here's the link:
http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php?
You can even elect to see what the astronauts are viewing @ the moment by seeing exactly where they are over the earth, just click on the 'Home' link at the top of the page. Right now they're directly over Yemen.
This is a great chance to share an experience with kids, they probably won't even have enough time to get bored as these passes only last about 6 minutes.
