by Michael Peck
Well, as luck would have it, nature called at about 6:20 this morning. I had decided that I wasn't going to set an alarm to see the stations, but had hoped I would "get lucky."
I spotted ISS moving S-SE about 35 degrees above the horizon, at about halfway through it's arc. It was incredibly bright, I'd have to say brighter than Sirius. I'm not that good at judging how bright things are, so I may be off a bit.
Using 7x50 binos, I couldn't make out any detail at all. The sky had lightened considerably in the east, to a light blue color already. The color was slightly yellow, like some stars.
After a few seconds looking at ISS, I looked around again, and there was Mir. I caught it much earlier in it's arc. It was at about the same 35-40 degrees above the horizon, but heading E-NE. It's track took it pretty close to Polaris. I couldn't see any better details on it either, however it was a much more orange-ish to reddish color. Mir was also not as bright as ISS, about like I remember Aldebaran.
This was very cool!
Then, I was looking around at the sky, in areas I'm not very familiar with, and there was another satellite! Much dimmer than Mir was, heading E-SE. I'm not sure what constellation it was travelling through, but it was in the same location as Orion was at about 10:30 last night.
This was just about the most productive 6 minutes I've ever spent looking at the sky! It sure felt that way!
Well, since I was lucky enough to catch the stations, I can't get back to sleep. Have whatever kind of day you want to have.