After writing the previous entry, I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed to a darkish area in Tunney’s Pasture. Once there, I set up my tripod on the hood of my Tracker, located Venus (hard to miss as it was the second brightest thing in the sky) and pointed the camera so that it would have the best chance of the ISS being in frame. And then I waited.

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The International Space Station (ISS) will be passing over Ottawa this evening in less than an hour’s time. Assuming the skies are clear, this should be one of the best opportunities to view it.

It should come over the horizon in the west-northwest at 17:50 Eastern and travel across the sky before descending below the horizon to the southeast at about 18:00. Because your horizon is probably obscured by trees and/or buildings, you’ll probably find it just before 17:53 Eastern when it will be about 10 degrees above the horizon. It descends through 10 degrees elevation at about 17:58 Eastern. It achieves its maximum elevation of 54 degrees at about 17:55 Eastern.

For more information about the pass, check out the Heavens Above website or click on the star map.

I’m going to try to take some time-lapse photos of it passing over head.  If they turn out, I’ll post them here.

Update #1: You can see a couple of the pictures I took here.

Update #2: Link to ISS updated (2010-11-12).