Did I just see the International Space Station?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve seen satellites in the night sky before, but I was on my deck tonight and saw what appeared to be a satellite only bigger and brighter. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an aircraft. It was too high, moving too fast and there were no blinking lights. Many aircraft fly over where I live, and I can say with relative certainty that it wasn’t a jet.

Here are a few specifics. I live in Pennsylvania, and was looking into the northern sky at around 7:30 PM EST. The object was approximately 45 degrees above the horizon and moving at a pretty good clip. I’m thinking it may have been the ISS (at least that’s what I’m secretly hoping) because of its size. Does anyone have any idea what I might have seen?

2

I know this site will tell you where you can see it in the future. I don’t know if it has an archieve, but you can try

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html

3

Looks like it…

Using State College, PA [smack in the center of PA since you didn’t say if you live on the Philly or Pittsburgh side of the state] as a location at http://www.heavens-above.com it shows that ISS went by at 7:34pm.

There will be another dimmer pass tonight at 9:10pm and bright passes tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday in the early evening. Enjoy!

4

Cool, it’s gonna pass over here (I’m currently in Tupelo, MS) in 15 minutes. We’re gonna try to see it.

5

No luck :frowning:

I’m blaming it on high ambient light (a full moon) and general haziness, combined with it’s low, two minute pass over the horizon.

6

Thanks fiddlesticks!!!

That’s awesome. My wife is jealous, so I’m going to have to check out your site to see when it comes by tonight. By the way, I’m in Gettysburg, which isn’t too far away from State College so that was a good call on your part.

If anyone has the chance to see this, it is really neat.

7

Even more impressive was using heavens above to determine when we’d be able to see the ISS fly over, with the space shuttle near by.