Tonight hubby and I were out on our deck for a few minutes and noticed what at first appeared to be an airplane quite high up so it was just a tiny speck of light. As I watched it, it soon became obvious that it was not a jet.
It's movement was somewhat erratic ..... it would seem to almost stop; then it would move ahead in little spurts; and then would seem to move straight ahead again. Although generally heading in a southwest direction, it did not move in a straight line but sometimes meandered a little. We watched it for over 10 minutes and in that time it had traveled possibly 15-20 degrees across the night sky.
Could this possibly have been the ISS? Has anyone seen it to know how it "behaves" when crossing the sky? Any other ideas what this might have been?
This was at about 10:30 p.m. EDT in south-central NC.
I saw the International Space Station when the space shuttle was hooked up with it a month or so ago. I found a schedule which showed exactly when it was expected to travel over where I live and what direction it would be traveling so I am certain that is what it was.
When I saw it, it traveled from the northwest towards the southeast. It wasn't visible until it was about five degrees above the horizon. Then it brightened quickly and it continued to brighten until it was really bright when it was straight overhead. It got less bright as it traveled farther along and disappeared when it got to within five degrees or so from the horizon.
I didn't time it but would say that it took about five minutes to travel clear across the sky. I didn't notice that it moved in an erratic fashion. It moved quite steadily.
I will see if I can find that site that gave the ISS's schedule so we can know for sure, but I would think it wasn't what you saw. Could be wrong though. ;-)