( Colours? Yes those highly reflective solar panels are made of a shiny gold material, and they give the ISS a golden hue as it crosses the sky. If you have a pair of binoculars though, you should definitely try training them on the ISS вЂ“ they will make it look much bigger and brighter, and enhance its colours too. NONE! The best thing about ISS-spotting is that you donвЂ™t need a telescope вЂ“ in fact a telescope is pretty useless for ISS-spotting because the ISS moves so quickly itвЂ™s very hard to keep it in a telescopeвЂ™s high magnification eyepiece. All you need to know is what time to start looking for it. In recent years, the ISS has grown larger and brighter, and is now frequently so bright that you donвЂ™t need to be an astronomer вЂ“ with a deep knowledge of the night sky and expensive equipment вЂ“ to enjoy following it as it flies through the sky. ThatвЂ™s what makes it (and other satellites) visible to us in our night sky. That sunlight reflects off its enormous solar panel вЂњwingsвЂќ, just like sunlight glints off an airplane, or a mirror. Well, because itвЂ™s so high the ISS is still bathed in sunlight long after darkness has fallen down here on the ground. But how come we can see something so far away, so high above the Earth? If they go outside they put on a spacesuit.

As theyвЂ™re pressurised, like the inside of an airliner, the astronauts donвЂ™t need to wear spacesuits, they just wear normal clothing. These are the rooms and laboratories the astronauts live and work in. Between the solar array вЂњwingsвЂќ are lots of tubes or cylinders, all joined together, called вЂњmodulesвЂќ. The most obvious parts are the huge вЂњwingsвЂќ on either side are its solar arrays вЂ“ these power the space station by collecting energy from the Sun. The ISS is made of many different parts, and has bits sticking out of it everywhere. ThatвЂ™s because a) we canвЂ™t afford to build one of those, and b) in real life, spacecraft donвЂ™t need to be pretty, they just have to work. If you look at photos of the ISS youвЂ™ll see it looks nothing like the graceful, wheel-shaped space stations seen in science fiction films like вЂњ2001 A Space OdysseyвЂќ. Its pieces were all joined together in space, making it MankindвЂ™s most ambitious, complicated and risky construction project ever. To look at it, youвЂ™d think it was a huge Meccano model, and in a way it is вЂ“ a multi-billion dollar model built over many years, by different countries. The ISS is a high tech laboratory, orbiting the Earth at around 17,000 mph at almost 300 miles up in space, where astronauts live, work and do experiments. If youвЂ™re one of the many people who want to start doing this, but donвЂ™t know how or when to see the space station in the sky, this simple SPA Guide is for you. For many, itвЂ™s become as enjoyable a part of the hobby as watching a meteor shower or just standing outside under the stars on a clear night. Amateur astronomers have been enjoying watching the International Space Station drifting across the sky for years now.

See international space station