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How to spot ISS in your sky

Wayne Boyd shared his photo of the ISS passing over Marstons Mills, Massachusetts on November 4, 2016. Thanks Wayne!

This Wednesday (November 2, 2016) marked 16 years of humans living and working continuously aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Every so often, you can see the ISS in your night sky. To us on Earth, it looks like a bright star moving quickly above the horizon. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappears. So how do you know when you can see the ISS pass overhead?

NASA has a great tool to help – the Spot the Station program lets you sign up to receive alerts to let you know when the ISS will be visible from your location – anywhere in the world. And now, a new map-based feature makes it track when to look for the station as it flies over you in your night sky. According to a NASA statement:

The easy-to-navigate map lets users type a location directly into the search box, zoom, pan and search the map. Blue pins populate the map, identifying the best sighting opportunities for each location with a 50-miles radius around each pin. Visible to the naked eye, the station is best seen at dawn and dusk, and is the third brightest object in the sky.

You can get also sign up for alerts via email or text message. Typically, alerts are sent out a few times each month when the station’s orbit is near your location. Visit the Spot the Station website here to sign up, and view a list of upcoming sighting opportunities.

Patricia Evans in Seabrook, New Hampshire caught this ISS flyover on June 9, 2016. She wrote:

Patricia Evans in Seabrook, New Hampshire caught this ISS flyover through clouds on June 9, 2016. She wrote: “It moved quickly and silently overhead towards the East.”

If you sign up for NASA’s Spot the Station service, notices will be sent to you only when the ISS will be clearly visible from your location for at least a couple of minutes. If you live north of 51.6 degrees latitude (for example, in Alaska), you will likely have to visit the website to find sighting opportunities because notifications in this region would be rare.

A composite photograph of an International Space Station flyover, taken from the UK. Image via Dave Walker.

The notices contain information on where to look for the ISS in the night sky. Just note where the sun sets and you can easily find the direction where the station will appear (for example, in the southwest or in the northwest). The height at which the station will appear is given in degrees. Just remember that 90 degrees is directly over your head. Any number less than 90 degrees will mean that the station will appear somewhere between the horizon and the 90 degree mark. The station is so bright that it is really hard to miss if you’re looking in the correct direction. Alternatively, you can stretch out your fist at arm’s length toward the horizon, which is equivalent to about 10 degrees. Then, just use the appropriate number of fist-lengths to find the location marker, e.g., four fist-lengths from the horizon would be equivalent to about 40 degrees.

NASA’s Spot the Station program is great. I’ve seen the station fly over many times now, and it’s a pretty amazing experience. It gets you thinking about how far our technology has advanced.

The first module of the ISS was launched into space in 1998 and the initial construction of the station took about two years to complete. Human occupation of the station began on November 2, 2000. Since that time, the ISS has been continuously occupied. The ISS serves as both an orbiting laboratory and a port for international spacecraft. The primary partnering countries involved in operating the ISS include the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia.

The ISS orbits at approximately 220 miles (350 km) above the Earth and it travels at an average speed of 17,227 miles (27,724 km) per hour. The ISS makes multiple orbits around the Earth every day.