Spaceship Sighting Alert!

By Nancy Atkinson - September 7, 2009 at 7:22 PM UTC | Missions
ISS.jpg

[/caption] If you catch this post on Monday night, you might have a chance to see the International Space Station and Discovery while the space shuttle is still docked to the ISS. Flying as one, the station/shuttle complex is very bright and very easy to spot. But Tuesday evening you'll be able to see double. The shuttle is scheduled to undock from the station Tuesday at 2:26 pm CDT(19:26 GMT), and if you have clear skies, you should be able to see Discovery slightly trailing the ISS. It will be a great sight -- highly recommended!

How do you find out when the duo will be flying over your backyard?

NASA has a

Quick and Easy Sightings by City site

, where you just search for your country and city which provides local times and the location in the sky where the station will be visible.

The

Heaven's Above website

is also an excellent site to find out when the ISS, as well as all sorts of other satellites and other heavenly sights will be visible. At Heaven's Above, you can plug in your exact latitude and longitude, so if you live in a remote area, you'll be able to have exact times and locations to look for satellites instead of relying on information for the nearest city.

Spaceweather.com has their

Satellite Flyby Tracker page

to provide sighting info for the US and Canada.

Use this link

for other countries around the world.

There's also this very cool Google Satellite tracker.

Additionally, you can get a notification on Twitter when the space station will be zooming over your skies.

Follow Twisst

.

Here's wishing everyone clear skies and great views!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com