Another chance to see the Shuttle & ISS

If you're in the South, the lower Great Plains or Midwest, or Texas, and your sky is clear, you may be able to see the Space Shuttle and International Space Station fly across the sky tonight as two distinct, bright dots, the Shuttle trailing about 20 seconds behind the ISS. (That's "seconds" as a unit of time, not as a unit of angular distance.)

The Shuttle Endeavour undocked yesterday, and is scheduled to land tomorrow, so tonight is the only side-by-side Shuttle & ISS viewing opportunity for this mission, barring delays. As I've said before, this is a very cool thing to see, well worth a few minutes standing outside and looking up at the sky.

The flyover will occur between 9:34 and 9:39 PM Eastern time. To find out exactly where in the sky to look, and when, go to Heavens-Above, select your location from the database or the map, and then click on "ISS" or "STS-123" under the heading "Satellites." The closer you are to the solid black line in the graphic below, the better your viewing opportunity will be:

Don't pay too much attention to the red circle, as it "moves" along with the Shuttle and ISS. Just look at the solid black line. The closer you are to it, the better. But don't believe me -- go to Heavens-Above and found out the local details. And then go outside tonight and look up.

Here in Knoxville, I'll be looking up to the western sky -- just barely south of due west, actually -- about one-third of the way from the horizon to the zenith. The sky's clear now; hopefully it'll stay that way. Now I just need to pick a viewing location. If I'm able to get any good pictures, I'll (obviously) post 'em!

Comments

[Sean Sullivan]

For anyone looking for ISS/Shuttle tonight -- be aware that there's a THIRD spacecraft in that orbit, the ESA's Jules Verne cargo ship.

All three spacecraft will be easily visible to the naked eye. I think Jules Verne is separated from ISS/Shuttle by a few minutes of time, along the same orbital path. So if you see one object pass by, keep watching the sky.

Predictions for all three spacecraft are on Heavens Above: "ISS" for space station, "STS-123" for space shuttle, "ATV" for Jules Verne.

Also, here's a photograph I took of the space shuttle launch from Boston