Take a tour of the ISS

I have always been a big fan of space from as young as I can remember. My sister taught me the basic constellations. I learned all the planets and their specs from book after book. I was even lucky enough to take astronomy in high school inside the school's planetarium!

A few nights ago we were sitting outside watching the sunset just as the brightest stars were appearing in the sky. A friend and I were figuring out which they were, Canis, Jupiter, what's that one? A new one appeared, too bright to be a plane but moving to fast to be star. I whipped out my iPhone, launched SkyView and figured out it was the International Space Station! I hadn't seen it before since it's only in the sky a maximum of seven minutes at a time and this was a real treat. How amazing would it be to be one of a handful of humans to circle the planet? In this video, Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams gives a great tour of the orbiting vehicle. It's about 25 minutes long but worth the watch.

The view today

When I opened my eyes this morning I could see a bright purple coming through the window so I lept out of bed to snap a picture of this morning's sunrise. It was worth it! Sky scense are always fleeting and this one was no exception. Here's what we had 15 minutes later.

And then an hour after that... 

Full moon rising