You may have noticed the news recently about the plans to terminate the shuttle program.  One of the final shuttle launches is coming up this weekend.  The space shuttle Atlantis is now projected to lift off on Friday afternoon at 2:20.    

MSNBC reports that both the shuttle and space station will be visible as separate entities, each appearing as bright "stars" sailing across the evening twilight sky on Friday and Saturday. By Sunday evening, Atlantis will be docked to the space station, and both will appear as a single bright moving "star."

So what is the viewing schedule for your particular hometown? You can easily find out by searching for one of these popular Web sites: Chris Peat's Heavens Above, NASA's SkyWatch and Spaceweather.com.

In looking at these websites, I was very interested to see that Heaven's Above has a page for the night sky which any of you who are star gazers might want to check out.

And if you want to see some interesting shots of the sun, take a look at NASA's STEREO website.