ISS

[noel]

I think I saw the ISS on Friday. Around 10-20pm it was the only thing visible in the west, a tiny silver dot. I tried to take a photo , well I did take a photo but the result was disappointing, I guess too much white light around it. An hour later it was disappearing over the roof tops As I say I think it was the space station but one distant dot looks like any other distant dot.

[MjO]

Noel,

I think what you saw wasn't the ISS, but possibly a plane at distance, as the ISS tracks the full sky from Low West to maximum elevation to Low East in 5 minutes, and is certainly a whole lot bigger than a tiny dot and brighter than Venus, which is very bright at the moment. Friday was particularly good, as there was two passes at 10:21PM and again 11:56PM. Saturday was better because you had the ISS at 10:42PM followed by the Space Shuttle at 11:00PM which was certainly moving, tonight they will be a few minutes apart and you should see the Shuttle gaining on the ISS, after that they join up, with the consequence that the ISS will be significantly brighter with the addition of the Shuttle. You will certainly have a problem trying to capture it on camera or video, as you would need some quite sophisticated stuff to do that, unless of course you have that type of equipment.

MjO ...

[noel]

I picked out the only object visible in the skies at that time, but checking bearings now, my house is facing South East at the back, the object was probably South, not West, and it looks very much like a planet, not a tiny dot Mjo a distant one, and very bright, I hadn't a clue what shapew it was before a few minutes ago whe I "uploaded it". I shaln't bother looking for it if it's only visible for a few minutes at low trajectory, I'll never see it because of the roof tops west of our house.

[MjO]

Noel,

Your photo is typical of the type when trying to pull in a distant object. The ISS is only ever visible for a few minutes due to its speed, and tracks the full sky West to East in never more than a 5 or so minutes, and achieves is maximum elevation (currently about 60deg which is quite high in the sky!) just as the sun rises Low East and sets Low West but this is not to say that the Sun doesn't reach a high elevation in the sky, so wherever you are you should be able to see it - but not tonight I think, looking at the cloudy sky. On the current 5 min transit if you add half this to this rise time given, the ISS will be at its highest elevation (approx) so you can look for it without having to waste any time at all.

MjO ...