Real-Time Spaceflight Viewing Utility

http://content.imagesocket.com/images/sighting_opps169.jpg (http://imagesocket.com/view/sighting_opps169.jpg)

Want to know when a NASA spacecraft will be flying over your city? Select your country to find out!

Click HERE (http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/)

only in the morning between 7am/8 am :(

The International Space Station is flying over my town in an hour and a half! I'll have to check it out, even though it's cold as balls out.

Sorry Che. Max, enjoy! As for me we've got very overcast skies here in my part of Michigan and the ISS is scheduled to fly overhead in just under 3 hours. Curse you Mother Nature! Give us clear viewing!

I might have some difficulty finding the angle for viewing tho. I don't own a sextant. We live near countryside and I would go out there and be scanning the entire sky for the thing at the appropriate time. But it's well worth it. Here's why:

No joke: in late summer 2007 my girlfriend wanted to have a cigarette break during some evening TV viewing so we stepped our house and saw a spectacular sight, a true sky watching rarity. It was a crystal-clear night and the town lights were low and the sky was lit up with stars - and the ISS & Space Shuttle were flying in sync with each other! Wow! It was just as our Yahoo homepage had promised but we forgot all about that day's online announcement until we looked up and saw them that night.

They were so bright and moving so fast, somewhat distant from each other yet moving at the exact same speed and direction across the sky directly above us. It was spectacular. Just like two shining dimes - one twice as bright as the other - chasing each other across the night sky. It made me feel like part of something big tho small as I am here as one man on Earth. I'll never forget it. If my gal wouldn't have wanted to smoke just then we would have missed out on an event of a lifetime.

I hope the skies clear tonight. In my opinion the Space Shuttle literally can't hold a candle to the ISS when it comes to visibility and coolness when viewed (although together they were very, very cool). Those ISS solar panels reflect the sun like a beacon. The ISS is worth every dime just for the presence it has in the heavens. That sucker is BRIGHT!

Tangential note: I saw an enormous, white-hot meteor cruise thru and then break up in the atmosphere one random night in the summer of 1995 and lemmie tell you I’ll never forget the sight. It looked like a white-hot phosphorous full speed ahead Phobos (see pic below). I was working as a Bellman at the Collins Plaza Hotel in Cedar Rapids, IA. That night I had to go out and change the marquee sign to announce a convention at the hotel. Just another random summer night on the job. Until…

I was changing the big lit-up letters on the marquee and then I saw something light up in the sky to my right. It was a rock, a white hot rock and it was crashing through the sky man! It had features, surface features I could make out – that’s how big it was and how long it was viewable. How many seconds – I dunno. But within the white-hot superglow I saw a crater on the top portion of it – a crater 20% the size of the space rock. I’m not kidding you man I wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t seen it. If you think I’m full of crap I don’t blame you it was literally unbelievable.

I just stared at it stunned and watched it burn white-hot and trail bits of it behind it. It looked like it was misshapen moon made out of phosphorus and headed downward toward the horizon. I thought at once it was going to impact on the ground in the far distance. I wasn’t scared a bit – I was shocked and excited as hell! When I saw that crater on it I was awed at its apparent size. Nothing traveling that fast so high up in the air could have a crater on it and not be monstrous in size, right? Man I was thunderstruck.

Little white bits of it were breaking off and then at once the whole thing just shattered. I continued to stare at the sky. In my excited state I thought I’d just seen the end of the world almost happen. Of course not true but who else knew? There was a big interstate running next to the hotel and I remember whirling around and screaming “DID YOU SEE THAT!!!” to no one in particular. But the cars continued to cruise on by down the road, oblivious to the wonder that had occurred outside their wind@ws. Heck as far as I knew I was the only one on Earth who saw it – but it was so huge, I doubt that I was alone.

This really is a tale that is not very credible. It just seems too much of a coincidence that right at that particular moment I could be looking at that portion of one night’s sky and see a white-hot mini-moon fall thru the heavens. But I did. No one will ever think this story is as cool as I do. It’s the only memory that I’d ever try to paint on canvas. That cratered chunk of outer space stuff just shot through my reality and put on a beautiful, stunning show.


http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/1580/phobos2ee1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Well I was unable to see much of anything, even though I was outside about 10 minutes early and stayed til 10 minutes after. Probably because I'm too close to the city lights, and it was supposed to be only 15 degrees above the horizon in the exact damn direction of the city (which I didn't think to check, until I got out there). Oh well, I have 8 other opportunities in the next 2 weeks, so I have to make sure I head out to the country for one of the times that it's higher than 25 degrees in the sky.

I try to follow most of the shuttle launches and missions while they're connected to the ISS via NASA TV. It may not be actioned packed stuff all the time but I still can't believe we're watching this stuff as it's unfolding.

You youngbucks wouldn't have even been around when I was a kid watching Neil Armstrong (apparently ;-P) walking on the moon in '69. It took a day (for TV replays) to reach our shores. So being able to view a live EVA at the click of a mouse button on the web seems pretty damn amazing to me.

On the surface it doesn't look like we've come a long way as countries indicate their intentions to head (back?) to the lunar surface i.e. USA, China, Russia et al. But the technology and exploration craft have come a long way in the nearly 40 years since the 1st Lunar landing.

I'm addicted to this stuff. If I can't get there myself then I've gotta live it vicariously via the web ;-P