I've been reading over these forums for about a week now, I'll start by saying that I firmly believe that the Earth is round, but I'm always up for an honest debate. I won't pretend to be a scientist; my math skills barely got me through calculus 2, so I can't begin to argue about advanced physics or complicated math theories. I can, however, share first hand experiences.
I currently attend Washington University in St. Louis, the University has two observatories, the Crow and Tyson telescopes. Using NASA's skywatch software to track the stations next pass, my class was able to spot the station on more than one occasion. I could clearly make out the object that I was seeing, It looked exactly like NASA said it does. We were able to watch it for a few minutes. Without magnification it was nothing more than a faint dot darting across the sky.
It seems to me that by using NASA's software, a group of people spread out across the globe could continue to watch it for an extended period of time. I would imagine that it would be visible at all times, barring Earth's weather affecting your vision. I'm curious as to what this object could be if it wasn't something orbiting the Earth. Anyone with a decent telescope and a nice viewing spot can see it. I'm not trying to start an argument, It's been a lot of fun reading this forum and learning about both sides of the argument, but I'm curious how visible things orbiting the Earth (the space station, satellites) are explained.
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Skywatch 2.0 =
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.htmlWashington University Observatories =
http://physics.wustl.edu/Overview/Docs/Observatory.php