I do a lot of astronomy including public events where we point out cool stuff that happens all the time and you don’t need a telescope for it. One thing that always get’s people is Space Station Passes, many people don’t realize how bright the Space Station is on a good pass (a good pass would be being very brightly illuminated pass during the dark, high above horizon), you don’t need a telescope or any special equipment, just your eyes. You might mistake it for a low altitude small plane going from horizon to horizon in a space of 5 minutes if you don’t look at it very closely. I stepped outside this evening with my daughter and Venus was easily the brightest thing in the sky just setting to the North-East. Beyond that, the space station at around magnitude -1 was one of the brightest objects in the sky, zipping across the sky it’s quite cool when you point and tell someone…’that’s the space station’. We live in a fairly light polluted area of the city where when you step outside you might see 20 stars max after a couple minutes. In a dark spot outside the metro, when your eyes are dark adopted and you can see the Milky Way it’s actually pretty spectacular. The Space Station has been flaring recently with the addition of additional solar panels that has reached the levels of near iridium flare brightness (a whole other story but, hands down much more impressive). The Space Station passes vary on a regular basis over a couple week at a time due over a month or two due to orbit and illumination from the sun (while it’s dark out), two good free websites to see when the Space Station will pass over your house are Calsky.com and Heavens-Above.com. Also, a good free satellite prediction program for the PC is Orbitron. For either the websites you will have to enter your viewing location and your looking for several things, the period during the time it will be visible (say from 10:56 to 11:01 pm), and where it’s going to be. They generally give you the time and position it’s first visible, the time and position when it’s brightest, and the time and position where it disappears. The position is given as degrees above horizon (0-90 degrees but, generally anything below 10 is not going to be visible), and the Azimuth (compass direction 0-360 degrees). From the entry, maximum, and exit points you can kind of get a feel for the path it’s going to be flying if you want to setup a camera or just to look for it in general. The timing is not as critical as an iridium flare where it might flare for 10-20 seconds max. Just look for a bright light floating from horizon to horizon over the course of a few minutes.
For a good discussion of the recent ISS flares and Space Weather topics my favorite site is SpaceWeather.com .