The Space Station On Twitter

I read a while ago on Astronomy Blog that there was a Twitter feed called About London (developers’ blog) for International Space Station (ISS) passes overhead, as well as some other things. Basically every time the ISS was due to pass over London a Tweet would appear saying when it was due and where to find it in the sky. Nice idea. But we don’t all live in London and I wanted to make one for my own fair Cardiff. So here is the Twitter address for Over Cardiff which will currently tell you when the ISS or Hubble are going to be visible: http://www.twitter.com/overcardiff Twitter is great because its simple. You can receive notifications either by text or IM - or just online by RSS or the Twitter website. I have been wanting to learn a bit more PHP recently so this seemed perfect. While I was at it it seemed easy enough to make some for other cities as well. They are all listed below.

Name changed to Over Somewhere to distinguish this from Above London and associated projects.

This is all new to me so I welcome comments and thoughts from people. Also this is all on the proviso that it may break for a little bit. I think I’ve tested it but in my own experience these things are never tested until they’re used.

Over Aix-en-Provence Over Birmingham Over Belfast Over Cardiff Over Dublin Over Edinburgh Over Hong Kong Over Indianapolis Over Milton Keynes Over Manchester Over New York Over Paris Over San Francisco Over Sydney If you any other city requests, then leave the comments here and I’ll see what I can do. The current cities are based more of where I have family and friends than anything else.

I will post an explanation eventually including the PHP for how this was done. Basically I scrape Heaven’s over and then run a separate script for check for upcoming transits. Enjoy your Twittering.