Look up (and witness an ISS flyby)
Unfortunately, Heavens Above, our provider of ISS flyby predictions, is receiving too many requests to handle our (and others') requests and blocking this service. We are looking into providing a solution.
Ever wanted to watch the International Space Station fly through the night sky over your own house? Keep your calendar up to date with
upcoming visible flybys, in two simple steps.
Flybys of the International Space Station
Currently being the second brightest object in the night sky (that is, besides the moon), the International Space Station can easily be
observed. The station is often visible as a very bright and sharp star-like dot that slowly moves across the night sky. If you're
lucky (you can get lucky!), the ISS may be visible from horizon to horizon, flying right over your location, lasting up to a few
minutes (the station flies at just under 28000 kilometers per hour).
In a flyby season (about a week, every few weeks, dependent on your location), the timing, location and lighting of the ISS
is right so you can observe flybys. Visible flybys occur just after sunset, or before sunrise, when the station is basking in the sun
(it flies about 350 kilometer high above the Earth), and you experience a dark night sky.
The space station is pretty big, about the size of a soccer/football field. Most of this are solar arrays, which not only collect
a huge amount of energy, but reflect a lot of sunlight to earth, making the station easily visible. Still, the space on the inside of
the station is 240 cubic meters. That's pretty big. Did you know that with a nice pair of binoculars, you can make out some of the
station's shape? That's awesome. Do it.
Help
How do I subscribe to a calendar with my calendar software?
This websitelet adopts the iCalendar protocol to keep your calendar software updated with upcoming flybys. Most calendar
software (like iCal, Outlook, Google Calendar, ...) support subscriptions to these .ics files via the webcal://
protocol so your calendar is automatically updated with upcoming flybys.
The following shows the process of subscribing to a calendar with iCal on Mac OSX
- Pinpoint your location on the map
- Click the "Subscribe with your calendar software" link
- Since iCal is associated with the text/calendar content-type, .ics files served through webcal:// are automatically opened with iCal
- iCal asks you whether you want to subscribe to the calendar, acknowledge
- You can set up some options, make sure to set the Auto-refresh to every day, or every week (more frequent doesn't help anyway).
- Click OK, and you're done.
Here's how to subscribe with Google Calendar
- Pinpoint your location on the map
- Copy the URL of the "Subscribe with your calendar software" link
- In Google Calendar, click the "Add/Add by URL" link under "Other Calendars" in the list on the left
- Paste the link you have copied before
- Click "Add" and you are ready to go
I don't use Outlook or other calendar software, but the process should be similar to that of the above programs.
How do I keep updated by syncing my phone?
If you can sync your phone with your calendar software, download or subscribe to calendars of upcoming ISS flybys, below, and
make sure that your phone's calendar is synced. Five minutes ahead of a flyby, your phone will ring an alarm, and provide you
with elementary information about the flyby. Obviously, this is only true if your calendar software and phone are capable of
understanding iCalendar alarms. I'm using iCal on Mac OS X and an iPhone for this, which works great.
I'm not getting any results in my calendar. What's up with that?
If you're not getting any flybys in your calendar, that's probably because it's currently not the season, unfortunately
... Visible flybys occur in (about) a week of consecutive days, and after such a season, you have to wait a few weeks for them to
reappear. If you don't live too close the poles, you'll probably get some flybys soon. Subscribe to the calendar, and let your
calendar software do the rest. You will be automatically notified when the new season starts!
I don't understand the information in the calendar's events
About "Look up"
lookup.liekens.net is a websitelet (a one page web site with a minimalist service) whose
sole purpose is to provide (automatically updated) calendars of upcoming ISS flybys, powered by data from
heavens-above.com (with permission). This service is merely an extra layer to
generate electronic calendars in a common format. Technically, I'm taking Ruby along for a ride on Apache, Passenger, Rack and
Sinatra.
Concept, and realization of this websitelet is by
Anthony Liekens.
Options
You may want to set the following options before downloading or subscribing to a calendar of flybys:
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Latitude:
Longitude:
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2. Get ISS flyby predictions
The following links automagically provide flyby predictions for your location.
Besides many other satellites, heavens-above.com allows you to view a list of visible flybys of the International Space Station, along with lots of supporting information.
After downloading this iCalendar file, load it into your calendar software (iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook, ...) and you will have a list of the upcoming ISS flybys in the next 10 days. (View options)
Subscribe (with your calendar software) by clicking the above link and be automatically updated about future flybys of the International Space Station. (Learn how to subscribe)
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View upcoming ISS flybys
Download a calendar of flybys
Subscribe with your calendar software