I just came in from watching my favorite non-human carrying Earth orbiting spacecraft. It was orbited by the Japanese several years ago and is called EGP (I think that stands for Experimental Geodetic Payload). Basically it's a 2 meter diameter sphere covered with mirrors. Kind of like the Starshine satellites a number of us helped polish mirrors for a few years back but on a much larger scale. It's fun to watch in that as it passes across the sky the Sun glints off of the mirrors causing a couple of ~3.5 magnitude flashes per second. Makes me think of a diamond flashing across the sky. As it happens this is a good week for northern Utahans to do a bit of EGP watching. Those wanting to know the wheres and what times came go to: http://www.heavens-above.com/selectsat.asp? lat=40.761&lng=-111.890&loc=Salt+Lake+City&alt=0&tz=MST and enter 16908 for the "US Space Command ID". On the next page click on "Ajisai (EGP)" and on the page after that click on "Passes". FWIW, I would not bother with any passes with Max Altitudes under 50 to 60 degrees. Also, if you've got eyes as old as mine, binoculars help (I used 7x35s). As for Atlantis, now that the mission has been extended 2 days we could have an excellent view next Wednesday (the 20th) night. Details here: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/region.cgi? country=United_States®ion=Utah pw