KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

The International Space Station will be flying nearly overhead tonight from about 9:12pm through 9:15pm.  Since the new solar panels have been installed there have been reports that the station briefly “flares” roughly 25 times the brightness of Venus.  Evidently the new panels are on a different plane than the other panels which should certainly add to our delight when the Space Station is visible.  I’m not sure what we will get to see but with crystal clear skies tonight and skies being completely dark (the moon should be a fair distance to the west of the transit) it should be a great view!  Look for a bright star like object in the north-northwestern sky emerging out of the Earth’s shadow heading to the east-southeast.  This will only be visible for two minutes tonight but there will be additional opportunities Saturday, Sunday and Monday evenings at different times.  You can catch future ISS (and shuttle) flybys by following NASA’s link.  In addition, you can read more about these reported “flashes/flares” and view a cool quick-time movie shot through a telescope at the spaceweather.com site.