Very Bright International Space Station Pass

A lot of people don't know you can see satellites with the naked eye. The International Space Station (ISS) is very large and has huge solar panels. Not only can you see it, the ISS is sometimes one of the brightest objects in the sky.

Racine has some excellent passes this week. Tonight at 5:58 pm it will rise in the west-norhwest and pass almost directly overheard before passing into Earth's shadow at 6:01 pm. It will be almost as bright as Venus (which will be in the southwest).

Tuesday night's pass starts at 6:26pm and won't be quite as bright, but will still be brighter than the brightest star in the sky (but not as bright as Venus). The pass again starts in the west-northwest but hugs the horizon, only getting about 30 degrees up.

You get one more really bright one on February 4th which will again rival Venus in brightness. This pass starts at 5:18 in the west-northwest and rises until it passes almost directly overheard.

If you want to take a picture of it, just point your camera in the general direction and leave the shutter open for 20 seconds or so. The satellite will show up as a streak on your picture like this one I took of the ISS (the second fainter streak is the Space Shuttle, click to embiggen) last year.

You can find information on the passes at Spaceweather.com or go to the more extensive Heavens-Above.com. You may notice that they provide information on the infamous ISS toolbag which was lost during the last mission. You can see it, but probably need a pair of binoculars to pick it out.

The Weather Underground says it is clear in Racine now, but could get dicey later today. The ISS is very bright, so if you can see any stars, go out and try to bag this one.

For people not in Racine, you can go to Spacewether.com and enter your zip code for pass times where you live (Beejay, you start getting passes tomorrow night!)