Empirical Earth · Space, Satellites & the Edges of the Map

Spot the ISS yourself

The claim

“Satellites and the ISS are CGI — nobody can actually see them.”

What is measured

The ISS is the third-brightest object in the sky, crossing on a schedule NASA publishes for your coordinates; amateurs worldwide photograph it, including its silhouette transiting the Sun and Moon, with gear NASA never touches.

What would show this is wrong

a published ISS pass that fails to appear on time; or independent transit photographs that cannot be reconciled with an object in orbit; or a carrier on 145.800 MHz that arrives and leaves at the same frequency, with no Doppler slide. That last one needs a twenty-dollar radio and one clear evening, and anybody can run it.

Sources

  1. NASA “Spot the Station.” NASA publishes visible ISS passes for any location — time, direction, duration and maximum elevation. The station is sunlit and visible near dawn/dusk as the third-b link
  2. Amateur ISS transit photography. Independent astrophotographers, using public orbital data, photograph the ISS as a naked-eye pass and capture its silhouette transiting the Sun and Moon with link
  3. How to hear the International Space Station, and the Doppler shift. The amateur radio station aboard the ISS transmits on 145.800 MHz FM (voice and SSTV), with an APRS packet digipeater on 1 link
  4. Slow-scan television from the ISS. The ARISS Russia team transmits SSTV images from the amateur radio station in the ISS Russian Service Module using the callsign RS0ISS , on 145.800 MHz FM link
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