I just went outside to watch the International Space Station pass overhead. There's no moon as yet so it was the brightest thing in the sky.
I'm not familiar with the scientific method of determining brightness, but I'd say that it was probably brighter than I've ever seen Venus.

I'm no astronomer but I do like to know what's going on around me. I remember Dad showing me an early Echo satellite when I was very small.
The Echo craft were, I think, balloons so their reflective surface would be substantial. I used to spot Skylab from time to time and I think that my best sighting was a Shuttle chasing the ISS to rendezvous.
Difficult to estimate, but I think that it would have been about fifty miles in trail. I have a feeling that that was the penultimate Shuttle flight.

Got Mom & Popdigr up at about 3 one morning to watch the shuttle pursue the ISS across the night sky. All 3 of us have seen the full size mock up shuttle up close and personal, so, it was fairly awesome to associate that with the tiny bright dot zooming across the sky behind that other bright dot.

Just wondering, where was that Grav? Cape Canaveral? Smithsonian?

It's so I can plan my next trip. That's the one I shall probably never have the chance to make. Oh, well...

I believe that was at The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Maaaybe Canaveral.

We went to Florida almost every year during my childhood, and our usual route took us through Alabama, so really it may have been either place.

The ISS has just passed overhead once more but unseen by me.

In the ninety minutes since I last saw it, the crew will have seen the sun rise and set once more.

They will have flown over several continents and mighty oceans.

I have been as far as the kitchen to make Dad and me a cup of tea.

Such is life.


BTW Thanks for that info, Grav.

I just saw a Bald Eagle. A big one. It perched on a tree above our building.....but it was in a spot where the only place you could see it from put the Sun behind it. I don't know if anyone here was able to get a good picture.... I'll try to post one if they did.

There's a series on TV here at the moment about the work done by the charity Hope for Wildlife based in Nova Scotia.

Friday's episode featured a Bald Eagle that was seriously weakened after a severe storm.

The first thing the Vet did was to completely tape up the bird's talons having first shown them to the camera. Evidently capable of doing great damage.

Good spotting, Jim. If you don't mind me asking, are you in PA? I have a feeling earlier posts might have indicated that. If so, is the Bald Eagle a resident species?

500 to 1000 pounds pressure...

I'm in NJ at work. Cherry Hill, which is about 5-10 miles (as the Eagle Flies)due east of center city Philadelphia.

Apparently, there are a few nesting pairs not far from here.

Here's the best one I could get:

Thanks for the info and picture, Jim.

It's astonishing how often large wildlife lives in close proximity to urban areas.

A pair of Peregrine Falcons has nested for several years on a large office block in nearby Aylesbury, but there is a large supply of rather sluggish town pigeons available as easy pickings.

That was cool.

We saw a bald eagle fly over the stadium just before kickoff for my nephews high school football game on Saturday. It was apparently a good sign, 55-14 good guys. :) We get a lot of baldies around here, they're spreading outward from the Susquehanna. Pete and I saw a juvenile while paddling a couple weeks ago.

Pic of Pete as the eagle shots are too tiny.

I just ...had a Scottish customer. She said my Scots accent was quite good actually.

an ah doon think she was avin' me on

:D