Triple Spaceship Sighting Alert!

By Nancy Atkinson - July 28, 2009 at 12:31 PM UTC | Space Exploration
ISS-capture.JPG

[/caption] A great opportunity tonight (July 28) to see three spaceships cross the sky at once! Endeavour just undocked from the ISS today, so they will be close to each other, plus there's another spaceship lurking nearby: a Progress re-supply ship ready to dock with the ISS. How can you find out when and where to look for the three spacecraft? There are a couple of different websites that provide real-time tracking data and information about the ISS sighting opportunities. See below for more info.

The image above is a screenshot from NASA TV of the ISS as Endeavour undocked. Notice the shadow of the shuttle on the ISS solar arrays!

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 European Space Agency also provides their ISS: Where Is It Now site that also allows you to select your country and city to find the station's location.

The

Heaven's Above website

(which also powers ESA's site) 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.

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

. (Thanks to big ian for the reminder of this new Twitter addition!)

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