The international space station flew over London last evening, 22 July 2021 and I managed to see it.
It was a very clear sky and an almost full moon (about 29 hours from being full). Photo taken 9.16 pm :
The July full moon is called the Buck Moon, the time when new antlers emerge from the heads of bucks.
I knew the space station was flying west to east so I kept looking out and was lucky to spot it as it went over my house just before 10 pm. It was rather bright and moved very quickly. From nasa "The space station looks like an airplane or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesn't have flashing lights or change direction. It will also be moving considerably faster than a typical airplane (airplanes generally fly at about 600 miles per hour; the space station flies at 17,500 miles per hour).
This image from nasa page -
According to this nasa page, it was visible for 6 minutes over London at 82 ° above the horizon.
What is the space station :
The MLM was apparently visible just after, but I knew nothing about this. NASA will provide live coverage of a new Russian science module’s launch and automated docking to the International Space Station, and the undocking of another module that has been part of the orbital outpost for the past 20 years. The uncrewed Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM), named Nauka, the Russian word for “science,” is scheduled to launch July 21 on a three-stage Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The ISS circles the earth in about 93 minutes, which is 15.5 orbits every 24 hours. It should be visible in London again tonight, 23 July, so I will look out for it and update this if applicable!
