OT Intl Space station

[Barcelona Rick]

I know that I'm abit of a kid at heart...but I just came in from watching the space station fly over NE Texas. It was visable for about 4 + minutes. My 5 year old and 2 1/2 year old grandchildren also got to see it. I remember taking my son (now 25 years old) outside to watch the shuttle fly over and he and I watched the trails of the shuttle that blew up over Texas. Tonight it was cold but very clear....so now I'm in front of the Dearborn heater reading my favorite site. GOD bless you all...


jumbeaux

[Ysabel Kid]

Very, very cool! Did you use binoculars or a telescope, or just the naked eye?

I remember camping up in Canada almost 25 years ago. No light pollution at all. I was amazed at how many stars there are in the sky, and how many satellites and meteors one could see on a clear night!

[Barcelona Rick]

It was very bright and I viewed with the naked eye and with some old B/L Navy binos. The local news mentioned where to look so out came my GPS (my old compass) and sure enough there it was. The grandchildren picked it up faster than I did...old eyes....

jumbeaux

[AJMD429]

I remember in the early sixties going out with my mom to watch for 'shooting stars' and just to look at the night sky and relax and talk philosophy, science, or whatever. Occasionally if the sun's early night-time angle was just right, we'd see a satellite cross the sky, amazingly quickly.

At the time, novelists were writing how they'd be used to create a surveillance network to such a degree that you couldn't do anything or go anywhere without Big Brother knowing. We figured they were exaggerating!

[Ysabel Kid]

At the time, novelists were writing how they'd be used to create a surveillance network to such a degree that you couldn't do anything or go anywhere without Big Brother knowing. We figured they were exaggerating!

And they were. Oh, you have a bit of mustard on your shirt. No, the other side...

[kirkwood]

http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummar ... t=0&tz=CST

[nemhed]

I can remember watching the shuttle docked to the Mir space station pass overhead a few years back.

[Ben_Rumson]

Watched satellites fly over to and fro one really dark starry night out in the Fiji Islands..They really stood out....
I saw and heard Sputnik back in the day...

[Pisgah]

I've seen the space station, as well, and remember very well in summer of 1961 watching the Echo satellite pass over. Several nighttime church-league softball games had play suspended that summer so fans and players alike could watch it sail over.

[jeepnik]

Something my BIL and I like to do is overnight on the water out in the Pacific. Get out 40 or 50 miles, and you have a view of the night sky you can't get anywhere on land in SoCal anymore. It's kinda soul stirring. Out there, you can see more satalites than you could imagine. Even though they are just pin arrogant idiots of light, you know they are man made as they fly across the heavens.

[AJMD429]

Get out 40 or 50 miles, and you have a view of the night sky you can't get anywhere on land in SoCal anymore. It's kinda soul stirring.

Us landlubbers gotta do it in a tent or canoe or just 'walking out' - but what I wonder is - how do people get that same sense of timelessness and awe if they live in a city? Bang their head on the wall the pain numbs them? I did it for over a decade, and I don't know how I survived the UNREALITY of urban life. What's sick is when it starts to seem like THAT is reality.

[Rusty]

IIRC the web site to go to is drsky.com where you can see what might be passing over you at any given time.

I also got to go watch the last shuttle taking off. The roads were packed since it was going to be the last scheduled night launch.

It was still nothing like watching one of the old Saturn V's take off.

[rock-steady]

I watch the satellites most every evening when the moon is not up. In the first couple of hours after sundown, I can usually count five or six different satellites criss-crossing in the sky. Try this link for tracking the Shuttle and the ISS. http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/home/index.html You can click on your state and nearest city to see when the ISS/Shuttle will be visible.

[2ndovc]

Used to see lots of good stuff floating around Lake Erie at night as a kid.

Even cought the Northern Lights a couple times. That was Cool!


jb

[Blaine]

I remember Echo. It was still light outside, and the thing was huge! Sputnik and several others that I can't remember come to mind....A great and wonderous time to be a kid!! Nothing seems to amaze me anymore, except maybe the extent of manifest evil in the world.

[Pisgah]

Yep. Echo was nothing but a giant Mylar balloon, just like the helium-filled ones you can by at a supermarket. A communications satellite thta was nothing but a reflector. Amazing where technology has gone!