discovery reaches the international space station!

sunday's successful launch of discovery sent the shuttle sailing towards the international space station (ISS). discovery had to get into orbit with the ISS and catch up to it in order to dock. during the approach, the two flew together thru the night sky very quickly and very closely! just before the docking on tuesday, marco langbroek captured this image as the two objects passed over the netherlands:


the brighter streak on top is the ISS and the fainter one below is discovery. they move quickly across the sky as you can see in this few second exposure.

once the discovery crew assembles the final solar panel on the space station, the ISS will become the second brightest object in the night sky, surpassing venus for the honor! my favorite time to spot the ISS is if it happens to be passing overhead at sunset or sunrise, because it is super bright!

you can figure out when the ISS (or many other orbiting satellits) will pass over your part of the earth at heavens above, or using google earth as described by orbiting frog.

enjoy!