From a reader:
Lenten greetings in Christ! I hope this finds you well. Thank you so much for a splendid and edifying blog.
Having noted your interest in things astronomical in the past, I thought you might be intrigued by a relatively new feature of the Heavens Above website: http://www.heavens-above.com/.In the section that gives you tracking data on various satellites and the ISS, there is now a link that provides information on visible passes of the famous ISS toolbag!
The information provided for each pass includes the exact time, coordinates, magnitude of the toolbag, and a star map showing the path. The map, in particular, is handy, and I have not found it on other similar websites.
Otherwise, either you or your readers might be interested to whip out the binoculars and look for the bag!
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Thanks for the heads-up, Father. That is a really great website!
What fun! Looks as if it won’t be going over my neck of the woods any time soon, on its present course, so I’ll have to watch as it floats above Russia…
I read this and I had two thoughts,
1) Wow! That’s incredible, one can see the ISS toolbag!
2) Wait… what’s the ISS toolbag?
Funny you should ask, LCB, http://www.space.com/news/081125-iss-tool-bag.html
How did it get up there? It was dropped, of course!
We have watched the ISS itself go over and it’s amazing to think about what we’re seeing. (It looks like a bright star in the early evening before dark.) To see even the toolbag, wow! I wonder how someone feels to lose that expensive an item in space!
Good site. Us hams use it to know when the ISS will be overheard so we can communicate with the astronauts or use the ISS as a “repeater”.
Can we finally put a pig in orbit so we can refer to it whenever we say “when pigs fly”?
I remember a time when we had recourse to St. Anthony to help us locate lost items. Now we have satellite imaging and GPS! :-)
Wonderful. Now I have an image of St. Anthony manning a heavenly version of mission control tracking any and all lost objects….
LCB: How did it get up there? It was dropped, of course!
How does one drop something in space? Which way is down?
I have used the site in the past, but my 7 year-old son was very excited to think we can try to see the “tool bag”. Flies overhead a number of times in week. Will will hope for clear skies.