by Chris Considine
for Altadenablog
For all those that enjoyed Bill Westphal's great shot of the International Space Station soaring across the Altadena skies on Wednesday night, there is another chance this evening to watch.
The ISS will be coming from the
Northwest again,
Southward along the West coast at 8:20 tonight...Since it's a scorcher
here in
the foothills, many of us will be
looking for an excuse to get into the night
air. This will
certainly provide some entertainment and distraction from the high heat
that
started already this early morning.
Enjoy the
view!
Here is the SKY view looking up
(remember to
pretend to 'hold' the planet guide above your head for proper
orientation).
And this map shows the Earthtrak view
of the ISS
trajectory for tonight.
Many people are still shocked when I
tell them to
look up and view the ISS hurtling across the sky. Almost everyone is
unaware
that the ISS is VERY visible to us, and is in fact almost as bright as the
brightest planet,
Venus when it comes over during the evening. The sun is shining on it
when it is
up so far into near space, and it's full size (since being completed) makes for a fast
moving, bright
object that is easy to watch and show the family.
Now on another note, and one not so
entertaining,
there is a new 'partner' in the sky from our military. I for one am not a
big
fan of the militarization of space, but it's happening and we will be able to 'see' evidence of this
tonight. The
X-37B is now in orbit and has been spotted by us groundlings. And
tonight you
might get a glimpse of it. It's top secret and a bit scary in my opinion.
It is smaller than our real shuttle,
and is fairly
dim compared to anything like the ISS...however...it will be visible
tonight as
well...how visible, we'll have to see. It should look similar to most of the satelites passing over
us.
and this is the ground track...
