When it comes to a room with a view, no place on Earth can compare with the International Space Station (ISS) and its 200+ mile altitude. Knowing that they have a window to the world like no other, it is no surprise that ISS astronauts spend a lot of their time pointing cameras out the windows and filming what lies below as they glide by on high.
Well, the ISS crew really outdid itself with a new videothat has just been posted to the Universe Today website.
By watching the video, it's hard to believe that it was actually shot as a series of still images and then edited together by a computer program, but that's just how this stunning 'movie' came about.
The film, over a minute in length, tracks the progress of the ISS up the American East Coast. Starting over the Gulf of Mexico, one can see the lights of numerous oil rigs in the water before the ISS even makes it to land, where one gets the ultimate bird's eye perspective of all the major cities that dot the coast along the Atlantic. As the film continues, one travels North, with the Northern Lights eventually popping into the image, below the ISS!
At the bottom of the web page, there's also another dramatic video: 17 seconds of nearby Northern Lights over Canada.
Want to see the Northern Lights in the Cleveland area?
Unfortunately, predicting aurora, and more specifically, where exactly they will appear, is very much a guessing game. To help one's odds of seeing the Northern Lights, sign up for Spaceweather's phone alert system, which can be set to call you when aurora are predicted to be visible over your location, wherever that may be. The good news: sunspot 1416 poses a threat for solar flares, and thus aurora, too.
The ISS?
That's easier, simply go Spaceweather's satellite tracker, punch in your U.S./Canadian zip code, and get flyover times. In the Cleveland area, the ISS will be making several appearances during the next week or so. To save you the trouble of looking for yourself, here's Cleveland flyby data:
Tonight: look South-Southwest at 7.28pm, peak brightness of magnitude -1.9
February 13: look South-Southwest at 7:11pm, peak brightness of magnitude -3.7
February 14: look South-Southwest at 6:17pm, peak brightness of magnitude -2.0, catch an encore at 7:51pm later that evening by looking West, where the ISS will shine at magnitude -2.5.
February 15: look West-Southwest at 6:57pm, peak brightness of -3.8
February 17: look West at 6:37pm, peak brightness of -2.7
Lastly, the weather is something to be considered. Astronomy always a weather-allowing pursuit, be sure to keep an eye on the Cleveland weather forecastand, for hour-by-hour cloud predictions, the Cleveland Clear Sky Clock. The great news, at least in the Cleveland area, things are looking clear as a bell for the coming two nights, which also makes for a great time tocatch Comet Garradd,too. Live somewhere else? Find a clockand see if it will be clear near you.
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