The International Space Station will be making a great visible overflight of Southern California tonight. Tonight will be a spectacular “fly-over” as it will be almost as bright as is possible (the brightness is determined by how the space station – and particularly their football-pitch sized solar panels – happen to be aligned with the sun).
For those of you who may be new to viewing it the ISS will be visible as one of the brightest (mostly the brightest) star-like object in the sky as it passes approx 285 miles overhead at over 17000 mph. It will start low in the NW at 6:35pm where it will start getting higher (and brighter) as it crosses the sky towards the SE. At about 6:38 pm it will be at it’s highest above. Shortly after that it will “blink out”. What is actually happening is that the Space Station will be entering in to the Earth’s shadow as the sun sets for them (which it does almost every 45 minutes as it orbits the earth once every 90 minutes) .
Be sure to wave to the SIX astronauts/cosmonauts who are calling the ISS home right now.
More details on the pass here.