International Space Station Over The Night Sky

Over dinner we caught wind that the International Space Station was going to be visible tonight at 8:59, and decided that we should check it out. It was apparently going to visible from the south west, so over dinner I attempted to estimate what direction south west was.

I've been working on code tonight, and hence didn't bring up Google Maps zoomed in on the house until a few minutes before the event. Even with the map in front of us, it was difficult to tell where we were supposed to look. Why? Try living in the boon docks and you'll understand. So as it hit 8:57 we hurried upstairs and out onto the patio, still arguing which direction south west was.

Since the night was so clear, I figured that we had a decent chance of seeing it without working out the direction in which to be looking. The only challenge we faced was the amount of trees surrounding us. However after a minute or so of joking that we wouldn't see it because we couldn't work out where south west was, Katie spotted it, from the get go obscured by the huge tree next to the porch. A pretty cool sight, like a confused shooting star, heading up, rather than down. After about 30 seconds it had cleared the tree, and not long after, started to curve and fly across the sky above us. It was quite impressive how bright, and hence visible it was. The sighting lasted a good few minutes until it started to fade (rather quickly at one point) off in the north east.

Pretty cool to see. And I will say that my sense of direction ain't half bad - the point where we initially saw it was pretty much exactly the direction I was pointing while eating dinner. Even when I'm twisted around out here, I can still get my bearings obviously.