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This site looks like just what you want:
http://www.heavens-above.com/

Not true. There are plenty of satellites in retrograde orbits that are visible - Seasat-1 will be passing overhead at my house tonight from azimuth SSE to NNW. Its orbit is inclined at 108 degrees, so it appears to cross the sky 'backwards'.

PS - cool APRS gear.

Yes, the ISS is bright and will be brighter.

This still doesn't rival the brightness of an Iridium flare.

Predictions of the ISS and Iridium flares are provided at http://www.heavens-above.com/

Then there have been comets and supernova that have been visible during daylight. Yea, I think the ISS is cool to observe, but don't call it 2nd brightest after the moon.

I think you get into "event" vs. "object" here. It's a pretty fine line, admittedly, but I think the ISS does deserve some distinction for reaching this (vaguely defined) milestone. I mean, hell... I just used the term "milestone" which literally refers to a hunk of rock that tells you how far you walked. Our language is still that archaic, and we still have a giant thing in the sky that is shinier than Venus. And, the first example of something brighter in the sky that you suggested was a flash off another man made object. It kind of blows my mind.

I look for the ISS several times a month. A schedule is here In a given month the ISS is visible about one week in the morning sky and one week in the evening. The orbit moves to be optimal for US or Soviet launches at different times.

Really you don't have to live in the middle of nowhere. I live in Houston and have seen ISS fly overs more than once with the naked eye (at night).

I live in the suburbs of Glasgow, and despite the hideously inefficient street lighting (the sky gets more light than the ground) the ISS is very very easy to spot - at the moment it's nearly as bright as Venus when it comes past.

You can use http://www.heavens-above.com to predict visible passes. Don't forget that there are lots of passes where you don't see it, but then you can listen out on 145.800MHz or 145.825MHz for amateur radio transmissions from it. Remember those guys on /. a few weeks back who didn't really build their own radio equipment? You can do it too...

Heavens Above gives predictions for the location of the ISS at your location so that you know when and where to look for it.

Yes, the ISS is bright and will be brighter.

This still doesn't rival the brightness of an Iridium flare.

Predictions of the ISS and Iridium flares are provided at http://www.heavens-above.com/

Then there have been comets and supernova that have been visible during daylight. Yea, I think the ISS is cool to observe, but don't call it 2nd brightest after the moon.

(Also posted to Bad Astronomy.)

A simple orbital analysis using the ground tracks from, e.g. Heavens-Above.com shows that this was not debris form the collision.

The debris from a collision keeps more or less the same orbit as before, but is spread out along the orbit. (Orbital plane changes require a lot more delta-v than changing the along-track position or altitude, since drift along the orbit accumulates, but displacements across the orbit swing back and forth with each cycle.)

Looking at the ground tracks of
Iridium 33 and
Cosmos 2251

Just eyeballing the tracks, the North-going leg of the orbit of Iridium 33 crosses the latitude of Texas at around 10 PM local time. For Cosmos 2251, it crosses about 4 PM local.

An 11 AM fireball could be Iridium debris, but only if it were heading to the south-south-east. The fireball was heading NNE. So this was NOT debris from either satellite.

(Also posted to Bad Astronomy.)

A simple orbital analysis using the ground tracks from, e.g. Heavens-Above.com shows that this was not debris form the collision.

The debris from a collision keeps more or less the same orbit as before, but is spread out along the orbit. (Orbital plane changes require a lot more delta-v than changing the along-track position or altitude, since drift along the orbit accumulates, but displacements across the orbit swing back and forth with each cycle.)

Looking at the ground tracks of
Iridium 33 and
Cosmos 2251

Just eyeballing the tracks, the North-going leg of the orbit of Iridium 33 crosses the latitude of Texas at around 10 PM local time. For Cosmos 2251, it crosses about 4 PM local.

An 11 AM fireball could be Iridium debris, but only if it were heading to the south-south-east. The fireball was heading NNE. So this was NOT debris from either satellite.

The Iridium Satellites are not only comm sats, they're the source of a visible phenomenon known as Iridium Flares. They're actually quite cool, and you can freak people out by getting them to watch the patch of sky in which the flare is going to occur and then waving your hand and saying, "Let There Be Light!" or some equally prophetic tripe. You can get predictions Here.

The ISS' orbit decreases by about 4km per month. If we consider reentry at ~75km (completely arbitrary,
and probably quite a bit off), the ISS itself would come down in about five to six years, give or take. The toolbag
has a higher density than the ISS, so the deceleration by atmospheric drag should be a bit lower. That puts the time to reentry
in the order of magnitude of very roughly ten years.

From October 14, Richard Garriot will be sending back SSTV images from the ISS. Today they're planning to test some of the equipment currently on the ISS by sending SSTV between 1800UTC and 2100UTC. Unfortunately there won't be any usable passes over where I live before 1800, but I'll still be listening on 145.800MHz just in case...

If you're interested in trying to receive images or other radio transmissions from the ISS, you can get information on its passes from Heavens Above or by using prediction software like gpredict. You may find you need a larger antenna than the "rubber duck" that most scanners and handheld radios come with, but if you're far enough south to get a good high pass you might manage to hear it. For receiving SSTV you'll need some sort of gain antenna like a Yagi, really. In Linux, you can use qsstv for decoding the SSTV images.

Check out heavens-above.com for all your satellite tracking needs. Here's GeoEye 1: http://www.heavens-above.com/satinfo.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=CET&SatID=33331

For those who are really serious about (or nuts enough) trying to pick up ISS wifi signal.

Check out when ISS will appear over your head using heaves-above.com

Enter your coordinates and it will let you know exactly when and where it will appear over your horizon.

Here's a service that's been doing satellite tracking for years:

http://www.heavens-above.com/

You pick your location and it'll give you a list of satellites. Not as flashy as this new Google Earth plugin, but if you're interested in satellite spotting, it's probably the way to go.

Here's a graph of ISS altitude for the last year, if anyone is interested in hard data. (The steady downward slope is due to atmospheric drag, and the sharp increases are from firing maneuvering thrusters to maintain altitude. Presumably, the recent abrupt drop was the maneuver described in the article.)

No, the ISS has merely been stabilizing its first orbit. In LEO's you experience some atmospheric drag. Here is a chart over the height
http://www.heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx

A while back, all I saw was gradual decrease in height.

Pointless. Some genius w/a camera takes pics of satellite tracks. Living in a semi-rural area, I can track eye visible satellites w/a bit of patience. I was hoping for something along the lines of a 16" (or larger) telescope getting pics like are seen often on http://www.spaceweather.com/ they even have a "simple" tracking program. http://www.heavens-above.com/ is a neat tool/toy as well. And if you REALLY wanted to know wtf that codename for that blob of light stood for , hit http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/index.html there's a search function. At one point, there was even one of the UFO "tracking sites" that had some interesting blurry shots of what were prob someone's elint arrays.

For a browser-based version: http://www.heavens-above.com/

Do not forget the hyphen - I tried going there by trying to remember the URL, and ended up somewhere that is NSFW

There's still a last chance to see the satellite before the destruction attempt (or before it disintegrates). Visit one of the many satellite-tracker sites, such as the Heavens-above link below and enter your location to see if you'll have a favorable time to view it (binoculars or naked eyes). http://www.heavens-above.com/usa193.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET

Looks to me like it goes over the Middle East, India, Korea, China, Siberia and then down the west coast of CONUS. It's also not an ELINT bird, so unless they're peeking into people's houses there's not much danger of this being Bush's Watergate.

Yeah, they're so desperate to control satellite spotters that they publish an applet to spot all sorts of satellites and they took down another similar website

http://www.heavens-above.com/ also has a great tracking site for this Satellite (requires free registration).

I'm a big fan of Heavens Above, http://www.heavens-above.com/

> Where can I track the orbit of this satellite?

http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitdisplay.asp?satid=29651&lat=48.59562&lng=2.92156&loc=Somewhere&alt=10&tz=GMT

Change lat / long as appropriate.

go here http://heavens-above.com/satinfo.asp?lat=0&lng=0&alt=0&loc=Unspecified&TZ=CET&SatID=29651

you can get the updated elements if you click 'orbit'.

A polar orbit does not go low enough for the reasons described above. Specific spy sattelites are not set in orbit to monitor the entire globe either but are directed to specific areas.

Are you sure about that?

A polar orbit does not go low enough for the reasons described above. Specific spy sattelites are not set in orbit to monitor the entire globe either but are directed to specific areas.

Are you sure about that?

A polar orbit does not go low enough for the reasons described above. Specific spy sattelites are not set in orbit to monitor the entire globe either but are directed to specific areas.

Are you sure about that?

A polar orbit does not go low enough for the reasons described above. Specific spy sattelites are not set in orbit to monitor the entire globe either but are directed to specific areas.

Are you sure about that?

A polar orbit does not go low enough for the reasons described above. Specific spy sattelites are not set in orbit to monitor the entire globe either but are directed to specific areas.

Are you sure about that?

Apparently due to the inclination of the orbit, only about a quarter of those 93 minutes is in the Earth's shadow. So, the bad news is that they get slightly less than 25 shock free minutes to fix the problem. The good news is they get 15 attempts per day.

I read in an astronomy magazine that a budding astronomer should first buy a high powered pair of binoculars (10mm x 50mm) and star charts, plus a red LED flashlight.

That way, you get used to pointing out where things are in constellations. You also find out if you can handle the long nights, getting your eyes used to darkness and waiting, waiting, waiting.

It takes about an hour to get used to the darkness. Red LED flashlights also keep your eyes dilated, having little effect on night vision.

If you get good at doing things the "old-fashioned way", then buy from somebody on EBay, who spent the big bucks and found out they weren't as interested as they originally thought.

Worst case, you got a good pair of binoculars and saved about a grand.

Best case, you learned a lot more about astronomy and will be able to find anything by constellation.

Of course, download and use Stellarium. They have a red night vision mode you can take with you on a laptop. (I'd still recommend dimming the display as much as possible and enabling a 1 minute monitor shutdown, to keep your eyes).

Also, go to http://heavens-above.com/ for more information about tracking objects in the sky. (Be sure to synchronize your clock to the atomic clock, since satellites and other objects wait for nobody). Watching satellites pass is a good way to keep yourself interested in astronomy, while you wait, wait, wait.

Heavens-above.com and Stellarium are excellent planning tools, as are your handy star charts.

Currently: Pioneer 10 is 93.931 AU from the Sun. (Precise definition of AU)

Disclaimer: that distance is valid now, when I'm posting this. It'll probably be larger when you look at the linked page.

Currently: Pioneer 10 is 93.931 AU from the Sun. (Precise definition of AU)

Disclaimer: that distance is valid now, when I'm posting this. It'll probably be larger when you look at the linked page.

Heavens Above's Spacecraft Escaping the Solar System page is an excellent resource when looking for specific information and visual representations of the spacecraft escaping the Solar System (Pioneer 10 & 11, Voyager 1 & 2).

This website is good for this. I used it for looking at the ISS and it was accurate.

http://heavens-above.com/

or stellarium if you want an excellent downloadable app

I suggest heavens-above.com as another good possibility, because they allow for very careful localization (you can feed in your town location or your lat/long) and they'll provide a map showing the comet's position against the background stars over time for your location.

They also provide such maps for the ISS, the HST, and most amazing of all, iridium flares. One of my fondest-ever memories was working night-shift at a big manufacturing place and getting all the geeks in the place out in the parking lot at 11 PM, all staring up in the sky, saying, "WHAT are we going to see?" and suddenly *FWOOOM* there's the brightest flash anyone's ever seen and then it's gone and everyone's like "what the HELL?"

For me the three main ways I find information on the web are: Google, Wikipedia, and various digital libraries (in that order). Allowing Google to pry on the two first in concert would make the existing risks of Google regarding privacy considerably worse.

Ahem.. TFA said they only passed each other within 100km several times a week. It's almost incomparable to the ~1000 functioning artificial satellites that are orbiting Earth (plus a few more thousand old satellites that are now classified as space debris) If you track the most notable ones with tools like http://www.heavens-above.com/ then you would see that they pass each other several times a day...

Read all about it before the Lidle crash took the top spots on Google News. It's interesting, but really, Jupiter is always up to something with that turbulent atmosphere. Streams of spots have appeared in the past and vanished again. This will probably hang around for a bit and then go the way of other spots.

Meanwhile, there's Comet C/2006 M4 (SWAN), which is near it's peak magnitude, visible just after sunset which is my primary viewing target this weekend. It's going to be around until early December, but at declining magnitudes.

Ob ISR Post:

In Soviet Russia little reds spot YOU!

you hear the ghost of Bill Goodwin ellaborating on swan, the new white floating comet

The Astronauts are almost all Radio Amateurs and there's both voice &
data Amateur Radio equipment to toy with up there (& lots of classes
of school kids happy to speak with a Space Traveller.

For a real buzz (ie, after viewing Earth from Space & all the Science
experiments has been done), this Space Tourist should really try to
make a connection or three with some Muslim schools; I think it would
even be a first (as most of the schools that are selected from the
queue are from USA, I understand).

If anyone can get the suggestion up there to her, maybe she'll be kind
enough to give such schools (or any schools or other Hams she might
find on-the-air, for that matter) a Big Thrill, as well as a model of
what's possible - these days - for a woman of means to do.

Oh, for those who'd like to listen to on-air chats with the ISS, the
place to go for dates/times, frequencies & pass predictions is:

    http://heavens-above.com/

Eg, select your location - eg, someplace in United Arab Emerates - & go
- from the selection page to a page like this one:

    http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.asp?lat=25.70 8&lng=55.797&alt=21&loc=Al+Hamra'&TZ=UAEST&satid=2 5544

It's also possible to display info for LOTS of Amateur Radio equipped
satellites which are likely 'visible' from your location, eg, here:

    http://heavens-above.com/amateursats.asp?lat=25.70 8&lng=55.797&alt=21&loc=Al+Hamra'&TZ=UAEST

(Not knowing any place names in the UAR, I just picked one from the list that came up,
in response to my entering "*" for Town/City, to get each of the following URLs.)

Enjoy & let us know what you hear!

The Astronauts are almost all Radio Amateurs and there's both voice &
data Amateur Radio equipment to toy with up there (& lots of classes
of school kids happy to speak with a Space Traveller.

For a real buzz (ie, after viewing Earth from Space & all the Science
experiments has been done), this Space Tourist should really try to
make a connection or three with some Muslim schools; I think it would
even be a first (as most of the schools that are selected from the
queue are from USA, I understand).

If anyone can get the suggestion up there to her, maybe she'll be kind
enough to give such schools (or any schools or other Hams she might
find on-the-air, for that matter) a Big Thrill, as well as a model of
what's possible - these days - for a woman of means to do.

Oh, for those who'd like to listen to on-air chats with the ISS, the
place to go for dates/times, frequencies & pass predictions is:

    http://heavens-above.com/

Eg, select your location - eg, someplace in United Arab Emerates - & go
- from the selection page to a page like this one:

    http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.asp?lat=25.70 8&lng=55.797&alt=21&loc=Al+Hamra'&TZ=UAEST&satid=2 5544

It's also possible to display info for LOTS of Amateur Radio equipped
satellites which are likely 'visible' from your location, eg, here:

    http://heavens-above.com/amateursats.asp?lat=25.70 8&lng=55.797&alt=21&loc=Al+Hamra'&TZ=UAEST

(Not knowing any place names in the UAR, I just picked one from the list that came up,
in response to my entering "*" for Town/City, to get each of the following URLs.)

Enjoy & let us know what you hear!

The Astronauts are almost all Radio Amateurs and there's both voice &
data Amateur Radio equipment to toy with up there (& lots of classes
of school kids happy to speak with a Space Traveller.

For a real buzz (ie, after viewing Earth from Space & all the Science
experiments has been done), this Space Tourist should really try to
make a connection or three with some Muslim schools; I think it would
even be a first (as most of the schools that are selected from the
queue are from USA, I understand).

If anyone can get the suggestion up there to her, maybe she'll be kind
enough to give such schools (or any schools or other Hams she might
find on-the-air, for that matter) a Big Thrill, as well as a model of
what's possible - these days - for a woman of means to do.

Oh, for those who'd like to listen to on-air chats with the ISS, the
place to go for dates/times, frequencies & pass predictions is:

    http://heavens-above.com/

Eg, select your location - eg, someplace in United Arab Emerates - & go
- from the selection page to a page like this one:

    http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.asp?lat=25.70 8&lng=55.797&alt=21&loc=Al+Hamra'&TZ=UAEST&satid=2 5544

It's also possible to display info for LOTS of Amateur Radio equipped
satellites which are likely 'visible' from your location, eg, here:

    http://heavens-above.com/amateursats.asp?lat=25.70 8&lng=55.797&alt=21&loc=Al+Hamra'&TZ=UAEST

(Not knowing any place names in the UAR, I just picked one from the list that came up,
in response to my entering "*" for Town/City, to get each of the following URLs.)

Enjoy & let us know what you hear!

According to this article in Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log, you can actually spot the Genesis-1 spacecraft for yourself in the night sky. From the article:

Bigelow wasn't just being metaphorical about seeing that Genesis spacecraft in the sky. Satellite experts have already worked out a schedule of viewing opportunities - some of which should be bright enough for the naked eye. Go to the Heavens-Above Web site, plug in your coordinates, then go to the satellite database and search for "Genesis-1." You can also go directly to this page to see Genesis' current location, but you won't be able to find out when and where you can see it from the ground.

This Real Time Satellite Tracking page can also show you the orbital location of Genesis 1 and lots of other spacecraft, including the space shuttle Discovery, which was launched last week ... by that other space program.

There's also supposedly more photos which have recently been released on the Bigelow Aerospace website, but it doesn't seem to be responsive right now.

According to this article in Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log, you can actually spot the Genesis-1 spacecraft for yourself in the night sky. From the article:

Bigelow wasn't just being metaphorical about seeing that Genesis spacecraft in the sky. Satellite experts have already worked out a schedule of viewing opportunities - some of which should be bright enough for the naked eye. Go to the Heavens-Above Web site, plug in your coordinates, then go to the satellite database and search for "Genesis-1." You can also go directly to this page to see Genesis' current location, but you won't be able to find out when and where you can see it from the ground.

This Real Time Satellite Tracking page can also show you the orbital location of Genesis 1 and lots of other spacecraft, including the space shuttle Discovery, which was launched last week ... by that other space program.

There's also supposedly more photos which have recently been released on the Bigelow Aerospace website, but it doesn't seem to be responsive right now.

This story is so sketchy, and the web site is so cheesey, I'm tempted to think this whole thing is fake.

Um... you can see it for yourself, and the satellite has been tracked by government ground stations since its launch.

The only possible use I can see for this is to lease it to NASA.

Or the various millionaires who might want a roomier destination than the ISS to take a trip on a Soyuz rocket to.

Since the shuttle is going to dock with the ISS, make sure you check on Heavens-Above for ISS and STS-121 sightings from your city in the next few days. The best time is just before they dock (or right after they separate) because then you see two small dots in the sky racing in close formation.

However an assembly as large as the space station and typical for the requirement, loses over a mile of altitude a day in earth orbit and will burn up in the atmosphere within 1 year of ceasing to re-adjust its orbit higher.