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Look a moving star! nah, Oh it's the International Space Station

· 2 min read
Edison Trutwein
Edison Trutwein
Software Engineer

I was sitting out at my balcony on a clear evening sky, just gazing at the sky looking at the bright starts. I noticed a moving bright ligth in the sky and disappeared at the end of the horizon, was it a moving star, it got me curious.

It turned out to be the ISS International Space Station, the station is visible as it orbits the earth at an average altitude of 400km, Its almost the size of a football field link

International Space Station International Space Station

The good part is that you don't need to keep looking at the sky in randomness to spot the station that could take forever 😃. The website - Spot the station https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ allows you to signup for notification about the time and date of fly by. The website also has live map of the station

The notification will have details of duration of visibilty and direction of the station's appearance and disappearance as shown below. use a compass (mobile app should be good enough) to know the direction.

Station Spotting Details Station Spotting Details

Next time you look at a bright light beaming through the sky, it's most likely the International Space Station ❤️