[turnipsock (OP)]

I know we can see a lot of satalites whizzing about at certain times of the day. The Iridium ones are easy to see at dusk, but can we see the Hubble telescope?

I tried doing a search on Starry Night for 'Hubble' and it took me to the bit of space for the Hubble Deep Field image. If you have Starry Night, I would try this just to see how small the bit of space Hubble was looking at.



http://i34.tinypic.com/21l0kzn.jpg

[RD]

You can see the position of Hubble here...
http://scisites.msfc.nasa.gov/realtime/GIFTrack/giftrack_frames/frameset.htm

Photo of light trail of International Space Station, (Hubble is smaller and 50% further away).
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/hsf/CruxISS_H.JPG

The International Space Station in orbit (ISS)
Specs
Brightness approximately -4 (less than Venus)
Launch Window 5-10 min.
Orbital Altitude 361 km at perigee
437 km at apogee
Mass approx. 420 000 kg
Dimensions 111.08 m by 89.2 m
Speed approx. 26720 km/h
Orbital Inclination 51.5947°
Estimated Cost 28 billions
Orbital Period approx. 90 min.
Observational
Visibility btw 60 N & 60 S
Orbital Type elliptical

http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/pdf/educator-observing_edu.pdf

[syhprum]

I checked the orbit of the HST by loading the orbital parameters from Celestrac into the Wxsat prediction program I use for weather satellites.
It seems that it never gets higher than 1° above the horizon in Southern UK so there is little chance of seeing it here.
It is very easy to see the the ISS, it is well above the horizon here and very bright