Night Sky: Contrails and International Space Station and a star

Contrail against a sunset

Story and photos by Barbara Twaddell

I went out Tuesday night knowing the International Space Station would be coming by around 8:04pm.

In the first photo around 7:30pm I saw this comet-like streak, which was not the space station, but just a jet contrail being lit up by the setting sun.

The brightest star in the sky is the International Space Station

In the second photo right at 8:04pm the ISS showed up. It is the bright “star” in the upper middle. It moved quite rapidly from West to East. 

A real star in the lower right is Arcturus.