It was a dandy!

On Tuesday night we were treated to a celestial show at 10:04pm. We stood on our deck and watched the Int'l Space Station and Space Shuttle orbit in tandem overhead. I was a little underwhelmed when the news station made a big deal of this "rare" event an hour earlier. But when it came, I loved all 60 seconds of it.

Apparently the shuttle had just undocked and was about 46 miles away from the space station performing safety checks before its return home. The two were traveling at about 18K miles per hour.

I couldn't believe how bright they were and how close the two appeared to us. I thought the passing would seem so distant, but they looked like that were no higher than a commercial jet in flight. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since it's only about 60 miles up until you hit space.

Here's the news video segment if this remotely interests you: Stargazers gather to watch shuttle fly over Colorado