Turned to the to the south-east. Oh. Look at that! The Moon and Jupiter were close together. Attractive. About a degree apart. Jupiter left and up. Bright Jupiter; gibbous Moon. Neat!
It was cold!
Resumed scanning the northern sky. The ISS was supposed to be low in the north-west.
Was that the Little Dipper? The angle looked right. Upside-down? It might have been...
The ISS would come off the roof of the building...
Two stars, angled a bit to the west. Brighter one was to the right {ed: Kochab with Pherkad Minor to the left}.
A bright star, about a fist-width up {ed: Dubhe. The Big Dipper was skirting the horizon.}.
The higher star was two hang-loose spans up. Yep. About 45 degrees. Gotta be Polaris!
Was Mars up yet? I didn't see it... Oop. Wait. It was up! Behind the tree. A bit left of the main central trunk.
6:06:26. Got it! {ed: Time from Sony audio recorder, not calibrated.}
Brightest object (Heavens Above predicted magnitude -2.4). It was about 20 degrees up. It was climbing slightly. It might peak around 25 degrees as it went through due north.
Yellow-white. A bit more orange at the beginning.
Saw another star, similar to the 10 degree one—what?!
No, it was moving! It was following the ISS. A dual flyover?! Was it a rocket or docking craft? Or was it a different angle?
{ed: Can't find anything in Heavens Above. Stellarium shows the NOSS 3-6 r satellite nearby...}
The ISS was in the maple tree.
The ISS was heading directly (or nearly) to a very bright star {ed: Capella} to the north-east.
Fading out. Fading, nearing the star, fading. Lost it in the tree branches. Almost went atop the star! {ed: exactly matching the HA predicted path.}
Done. Fun!
§
Turned off the stars in Stellarium. I think I found it. StarLink 3271.
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