Just a quickie to share a rather nifty and unexpected experience I had while on vacation at Bethany Beach, DE last week.
On an early evening in the middle of the week I was sitting outside on the third floor deck of our beach house rental with my brother in law. Full darkness was probably 45 minutes away. He was doing e-mail on his laptop and I was fiddling with my iPhone. I put the phone on the table and sat back to just relax for a while when, looking up, I saw a particularly bright light moving across the sky in a northeasterly direction.
Something about the scene immediately struck me as as odd.
As I watched it pass, I noticed that it it was a single, unblinking, bright white light. Also, it left no contrails. The speed of its travel and the “smoothness” (somehow) of its motion stood out to me. And, even after passing overhead, I detected no engine sound.
It took about 10 seconds for me to realize that I was almost certainly watching the International Space Station pass overhead. I jumped online to an ISS tracker to see where the station was currently positioned, and — that confirmed it!
It was thrilling to happen into such a clear viewing of the most complex international scientific project in history passing right over my head. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. In all senses of the word, it was brilliant.
My dad would’ve gotten quite a thrill, had he been there to see it.
Dude, you totally need an ISS-Notify.