THERE are a number of opportunities to see the International Space Station (ISS) in the Isle of Man night sky starting tomorrow (Friday).
The station is visible low in the sky in various positions in the early morning and evenings from February 25th through to early March and can be seen with the naked eye or through binoculars, given clear skies.
The ISS will appear as a steady white pinpoint of light moving across the sky, but each of the sightings will only last a short time - up to a maximum of 2 minutes. You don’t need a telescope, unless you want to view other distant celestial objects in the sky.
The best passes of the ISS are most likely to be tomorrow evening (February 25) at 19.45 and Saturday (February 26) at 18.36 and 20.11 - low in the south western sky. Sightings of the ISS from the Isle of Man will be visible through to March 7th. The weather forecast for the coming weekend predicts clearer skies than we have had during this week, so good sightings should be possible.
The ISS is operated as a joint venture between five different worldwide space agencies from the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia. Its cost over 30 years has been estimated at $100 billion, making it easily the most expensive object ever made by human beings.
It is regularly visited by Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the USA space shuttle more than 200 miles above the earth. Astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations have so far visited the ISS, each orbit taking around 90 minutes to complete.
Construction of the ISS began in 1998 and work remains in progress. It is by far the largest satellite which has ever been in orbit around the planet and serves as a research laboratory with a microgravity environment where scientists can conduct various experiments which would be very difficult to emulate on earth.
