I saw probably the best International Space Station locked with Shuttle (ISS and STS128) pass ever. Scheduled to cross my sky in the nautical twilight, which gives it maximum illumination in its path through the sky, we positioned ourselves on the roof of a city building in plenty of time (precisely checked with an iPhone app), it appeared between buildings just under the Southetn Cross, which it subsequently crossed and continued with steadily increasing angular speed to reach about 64 degrees elevation before missing the moon by a degree and continuing toward the horizon - still lit until dissappearing behind a distant building only a few degrees above the horizon.
About 35 minutes later I was out the back walking the dog (in the dark) and looked up to see another dimmer sat using the same path (I think this was a Cosmos sat by looking at the predictions). When checking these I saw the Hubble Space Telescope was set for a 7:05 pass. So I waited (so did Dulcie) and got to see the HST until it went into shadow around the same elevation and fairly close to the moon.
By using technology (SMS) a friend was able to see these three for the first time - in two passes. http://scribblestoself.blogspot.com/2009/08/star-gazing.html
2009-09-01
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