Last night I spotted a few tweets about the “ISS” being “bright in the sky”. If I’m honest I had no idea what everyone was talking about but, thanks to Google, I quickly found out that “ISS” was actually a reference to the International Space Station. You can stand outside and see it in the sky if you’re in the right place at the right time, or you can track it as it goes over. That’s all well and good, but the excellent NASA site can shackle you to your PC somewhat.
We tried out a couple of apps for stargazing and found that “Space Junk” worked rather well. It pin-pointed exactly where the shuttle and the space station was in the sky as I stood in the garden last night although it didn’t help to move the clouds that blocked my view.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq8HvVXgBek’]
Update – Thanks to TonyP for this recommendation too. Sign up for twisst.nl and it’ll let you know when the International Space Station is passing by.Very useful 🙂
Links – Space Junk – NASA ISS Sightings – NASA ISS Tracker
Why can’t Google Sky Map show the ISS though?
Because Google sky maps isn’t dynamic, its fixed data, just like in google earth. Hence if you click on your house in streetview, I bet you don’t see yourself looking back at yourself
Try the Heavens Above app, it’s even better. The website http://www.heavens-above.com has even more info.
Yeah but a satellites trajectory is fixed data too. It can’t be that hard to program or obtain the co-ordinates of the Space Station.
There’s also an application available for Android called “Heavens above”. Great app! Generates alarms, shows a compass with a needle pointing to the ISS and other satellites…