ISS Spotting

The International Space Station season's kicked off again.

It wasn't the clearest of passes as viewed here from the Central Belt in Scotland this evening (too much light from the oil refinery over the River Forth there) but the sky was cloud free so we took the opportunity and had a little refresher in standing around in the dark and the cold with a camera and tripod, scaring the nearby householders who wondered why we were pointing a camera at their bedroom windows.

It was a bit of guesswork too as to where the station would show as - in-between trying to cook a Hairy Biker's oven baked curry and taxiing Euan around the Wee County - I'd forgotten to take the phone with all the details of the fly-past. The same phone that also usefully told me the time and has the compass built in to tell me what direction to look. I had to use the (hopefully) accurate clock on the camera and my own memory to predict the shot.

If - Big 'IF' - the sky's clear tomorrow there should be a better opportunity to catch this passing over just after 7pm, a little brighter and a little higher in the sky. Get out there if you're stuck for a blip; it's good fun and something a little bit special to see. Just remember to take something that tells you the time...

More shots of the ISS taken last year, slightly more around to the south west than this one