On Sunday, December 17, 2017 at 10:25:36 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Saw the International Space Station last night for the first time. It
rose in the north western sky right on schedule at 6:54 PM. It was
the brightest thing in the sky at that time and very easy to spot. I
tracked it with 12x stabilized binoculars hoping that I could see some
detail but not quite. You could tell that it was quite large however
and moving incredibly fast against the backdrop of distant stars. The
whole passage from horizon to horizon took only 4 minutes and passed
almost directly overhead. NASA has a good tracking site he

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

I saw the ISS and the Shuttle one night a few years back. It was one of the last shuttle flights, and they flew right over my house as the shuttle was approaching the ISS for docking. It was dark, but they were both still lighted by the sun, so they were very bright.

There's an app called Sputnik you can get for your smartphone. It uses your location to determine when you'll be able to see the ISS and Iridium satellites. Iridium satellites have large solar panels that act as reflectors, and if you're in the right spot it's like a giant flashlight shining down from the sky. As the beam of light passes over you, it looks kind of like an explosion in the sky, starting out dim, then over a 3 second or so time period getting bright then fading out. The app rates how bright it's going to be for your location, and tells you where to look to see it. Very cool.