ISS and Starlink tonight, by city

Go outside at the start time and face the first direction in the table. The ISS looks like a very bright, steady star moving smoothly across the sky. It does not blink and it makes no sound. It crosses in a few minutes and heads toward the second direction.

You can only see it near dawn and dusk. The sky has to be dark where you are, while the station, 400 km (250 miles) up, is still lit by the sun. That is why passes come in runs of a week or two, then stop for a while.

"Highest" tells you how far to look up. Your fist held at arm's length covers about 10°, so a pass that peaks at 60° climbs most of the way overhead. Passes that stay low are easy to lose behind buildings and trees.

A Starlink train is a line of satellites from a recent SpaceX launch, still close together. It looks like a string of evenly spaced dots moving in single file, and it is only visible for a few days after launch.

Brightness is magnitude: lower is brighter, and anything below 0 outshines every star. "Highest" is degrees above the horizon, where 90° is straight overhead.

Every pass is worked out from CelesTrak's published orbital elements, rebuilt daily. Only passes at least 10° above the horizon, with the station sunlit and the sky dark for at least part of the pass, are listed. Times can shift by a minute or two as the station's orbit is adjusted. When there is no pass for a week or two, the station is crossing in daylight or in Earth's shadow.