See the Shuttle and Space Station from your backyard

Let’s say you see a star where there wasn’t one five minutes ago. And it’s moving. And it’s definitely not a plane.

You may be looking at the International Space Station, or, after its docking today (Monday), the Space Shuttle and ISS together.

NASA operates a site that can show you the location of the two — and when you might be able to catch a fleeting glimpse of them from your own yard: Just add clear skies, darkness, and a relative absence of bright city lights

The ISS Viewing Schedule comes with an applet where you can enter your location or ZIP code, and you’ll get the time and date of when to look, along with the location in the sky of where to look.