Clear skies tonight, so perfect weather for spotting the international space station. At 20:43, look to the West, where it should become visible about 12° above the horizon, moving almost directly upwards.
(in London, anyway)
Space Station Spotting
Would you be able to put the laser cutter induction of pause for a few minutes so we may bear witness?
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Totally gunna try and do this. I have never seen it before and I really want too. I just bought some binoculars too at the risk of looking like pervert and this book
Also Tim Peak has announced his tour of the UK talking about his time on the ISS.
In London on October 19th but yet to release more details. I probably can’t make that date.
Will set my alarm now…
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I think I saw it. Like a bright star moving quickly. Not flashing. Looked like it was going straight up towards polaris but then quickly faded away.
That’s probably it. Moved spookily steadily, nice constant light.
Hope you waved!
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Shit I didn’t wave
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I’ll be back soon, twice a day at the moment:
There was a dense cloud strategically situated in its path from my vantage point. I used to be a keen star gazer and would sight it often, and I did actually see it twice accidentally over the summer. Perhaps even more spectacular is a so-called Iridium flare, and many other satellites are also visible in the hours after sunset on a clear night.
[quote]I think I saw it. Like a bright star moving quickly. Not flashing.
Looked like it was going straight up towards polaris but then quickly
faded away.[/quote]
That is how it would appear. It does not flash because, as you might infer, the source of illumination is reflected sunlight and it fades quickly as it enters the earth’s shadow. It was already more than two hours since sunset when it appeared overhead. If it had appeared earlier in the evening (in fact it did, as TomL’s link above says), then it would have been visible for longer. It looks like tomorrow at 7pm might be an even better time to see it.
A great one any minute now, from West to East, and getting pretty high in the sky
Shame I missed the earlier appearance, the sky was a lot clearer.
I spotted it the second time around:
Wed Oct 5, 9:27 PM
Visible < 1 min
Max Height 15°
Appears 10° above W
Disappears 15° above W
A few gooduns lining up ahead.
The earlier one was spectacular, possibly the clearest I’ve seen it in London.
Sorry 
Two decent viewing opportunities this evening, clouds allowing.
This one should be a beauty, sweeping round the sky from south west to east:
Thu Oct 6, 7:00 PM vis. 5 min max h. 54° app. 22° above SW disapp. 10° above E
Later there will be a straight up job, before the station enters our shadow:
Thu Oct 6, 8:36 PM 1 min 58° 23° above W 58° above W
The 7:00 PM session was worth the price of admission
Now setting the alarm for the next apparition…
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Oof, that Thu Oct 6, 8:36 PM was a beauty! Though it went up a lot higher than 58°, 85° more like. @StudioNelle spotted it first, right outside the front door.
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The south east London skies are clearing where it matters so the next ISS sighting is looking promising.
Fri Oct 7, 7:44 PM Visible 3 min Max height 89° Appears 35° above W Disappears 30° above E
For what it is worth, 10° can be roughly measured by stretching out the arm and placing a clenched fist with one side touching the horizon at 0° and the other fist edge would be at 10°. This is one of those body proportions that works for everyone. Three clenched fists one on top of the other would give 30° and so forth.
To spot the ISS at the next sighting would be a case of measuring due west 3 1/2 clenched fists above the horizon at the appointed time and that would mark the appearance spot.
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There are loads of phone apps that can help track these things
The 7:29 PM was another SLMS front door viewing opportunity yesterday evening. @RichM what app are you using?
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It’s called ISS Detector, for Android. Seems to work pretty well.