Author: /u/RealConfirmologist

It’s 6:23 AM as I write this and 47.7 degrees outside of my house.

My house was 71 degrees inside when I woke up around 5 and I turned the furnace on for the 1st time since before summer.

I’m going on a bike ride that starts at 8 and the first 20 minutes or so will be uncomfortable but the sun and exertion will have me feeling fine before long.

Whatever your plans are today, I encourage you to get outside for a while and enjoy this rare, cool and beautiful morning!

Sorry for the redundancy in the title, this morning. Can’t edit headlines/titles. (Sigh).

Edit/Update: Don’t go too far out of your way. 75% cloudy so may not be the best opportunity.

Get somewhere with a clear view of the sky, especially toward the south-southwest. At 6:52 AM, watch the horizon, facing SSW, and you’ll see a what looks like a very bright star appear, climbing rapidly. It’ll cross near the middle of the sky and disappear 7 minutes later, in the northeast sky.

Keep in mind that there are SEVEN humans on that thing. They’re flying around planet earth at 17,130 MPH!

Two related resources: Spot The Station and See a Satellite. That one lets you get a simulation showing the sky in your area with simulations of what’ll go by. Makes it very easy to know which way to be watching where you are!

Enjoy!

Edit: Typo.

If you have never watched the International Space Station fly over, you’ve been missing an awe-inspiring experience! If the sky is clear, it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch.

Get somewhere with a clear view of the sky, especially toward the northwest. At 7:39 PM, watch a little above the horizon, facing north-northwest, and you’ll see a what looks like a very bright star appear, climbing rapidly. It’ll cross near the middle of the sky and disappear 6 minutes later, in the east-southeast sky.

Keep in mind that there are SEVEN humans on that thing. They’re flying around planet earth at 17,130 MPH, or about 5 miles per second! Three of the astronauts are from the USA.

Another fun thing to do is to get someone on the phone that’s far away, and watch the ISS together. It brings a connection that’s hard to describe.

To know where to watch, go to this link and be sure to allow it to get your location – you can input a street address too – and you’ll be able to see an animation of the ISS with the Google Street View surroundings, so you will know EXACTLY where to look, and when!

You can also get notifications of upcoming viewing opportunities (it isn’t something that happens every week or two, a lot of things have to be lined up for the ISS to be visible to us) by signing up here, and it’s free.

Houston has a LOT of intense sunlight, plus the occasional power failure caused by tropical storms and other events, so I think this is a good place & time to discuss solar energy and other back-up options.

My brief experience & research leaves me with the impression that solar panels can greatly reduce the need for power from the grid, but very few solar systems are engineered to serve as a backup for when the grid fails.

Obviously, as with a stand-by generator, you’d have to have your house’s system completely disconnected from the grid during a power failure, or else you could kill a lineman and create other serious issues by back-feeding the system when power is out.

I’d guess that a solar system that also can be a backup during a power failure would require pretty substantial storage – ie: batteries.

So… I’d love to hear from people who have solar panels…

Does your system provide power when the grid shuts down? Do you have to manually throw breakers to isolate your system in such cases? If not, wasn’t the switching equipment pretty expensive?

I bought a generator after the freeze, spent about $1,100 for it, and it’ll power my 3 ton A/C system and the rest of the house just fine. I built a shed for it, while lumber was still sky-high, and bought propane tanks, etc., so I’m probably down about 3 grand. Still, the storm this past Monday afternoon resulted in a power failure for my neighborhood for about 2.5 hours and I was delighted to be able to keep my A/C running and the lights on.

Could I have done better buying solar for 3 or 4 grand?

How often is does your grid broker (electric company) issue YOU a check vs issuing you a bill?

Thanks for your input!

Edit: Spelling corrected.