After a fair few weeks of absence, the International Space Station (ISS) is now once again visible in European skies at reasonable times of the evening. As its name suggests, the ISS is an internationally operated space station in low earth orbit. It is the size of a football pitch, and weighs 450,000 kg. It is an incredible piece of technology and is the focus of this short blog post.

Since its launch in 1998, the ISS has orbited the Earth a staggering 89,740 times (as of 17:00 06/08/14). Indeed, the ISS orbits the earth in as little as 93 minutes, meaning the astronauts on board witness 15 to 16 sunrises and sunsets every Earth day. As of the year 2000, the ISS has been continually occupies by people. Consequently, the ISS is the longest occupied site away from the surface of the Earth in history. It is usually occupied by a team of six scientists and astronauts and has been the home to over 200 individuals. This means that at any point during the last 14 years, there has been an average of six people flying around the earth at speeds of around 30,000 km/h (that’s c. 7.66 kilometres a second!) at an altitude of over 400 kilometres. At this speed, the ISS could reach the Moon and back in one day; flying to the Moon on a jumbo jet (travelling at 900 km/h) would take 427 hours, or nearly 18 days! In a nutshell, the ISS is pretty darn cool.

The ISS is the largest artificial object in Earth’s orbit and is easily visible from almost anywhere on Earth with the naked eye. Indeed, the ISS can reach visual magnitudes of -4, which is 10 times brighter than the brightest start in the sky (Sirius; magnitude -1.5) and comparable to the brightness of Venus. The ISS appears as a very bright, fast-moving point of light. As of today, the ISS will be visible at reasonable times of the day for about two to three weeks, after which it will be impossible to see again for another two months or so. So check out some of the resources below and go and have a look for yourself; you won’t regret it.

How to see the ISS:

ISS detector

With the internet and amazing smartphone apps, it has never been easier to observe an ISS pass. Without a doubt, my favourite app for assisting with viewing the ISS is called ISS detector(Andriod and iOS; I have no connections to this app at all). It’s brilliant. You tell it your location (or it just uses your GPS data) and it tells you all the information you need to observe the ISS, including the start direction, its altitude, magnification and pass duration. As well as ISS passes, it also gives information on when you can view Iridium Flares(IF), which are caused when sunlight reflects off the highly-reflective surfaces of the Iridium Satellite directly back to Earth. On a dark night these can sometimes be incredibly bright, reaching magnitudes of -8 or -9. To put that is perspective Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, is magnitude -1.5 (the magnitude scale is logarithmic, so an Iridium Flare or -8 magnitude is nearly 400 times as bright as Sirius.

Heavens Above

Heavens above is a brilliant website that will give you all the information you need to observe the ISS from any location on Earth. It also contains a wide range of other fantastic information; a great source.

ISS spotter (iOS)

I have never used this app because I have an Andriod. However, I have been told it works very well, so I have included it here. Once again, I have no affiliations to any of the apps or sites represented in this blog post.

When to see the ISS:

The table below includes the ISS passes over London, England. This will be accurate for pretty much the whole of the U.K (differences in times for the beginnings of the passes will be seconds, so negligible).

Taking Photos of the ISS:

The ISS makes a fantastic target for photography. It is very bright and looks really cool in long-exposure photographs (15-30 seconds should do). Indeed, I have been able to get some neat pictures of the ISS just using a cheap point and shoot with 30 second exposures. Give it a go yourself…

Good luck and clear skies!

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