ISS Notify is a desk lamp that lights up every time the ISS is overhead! ISS Notify is a simple light and electronics project that can be programmed with ISS pass times. It will light up whenever the station is somewhere in the sky where you are.

It all started at Science Hack Day SF in November of 2010. I was given the idea to make an actual lamp turn on when an asteroid comes close to the Earth. Since then I refined the project into a small USB light that turns on when the International Space Station passes over.

Now I’m building a few of them and give them to other people who want to stay in touch with space.

The “lamp” is a simple electronics board with some LED’s on it and a USB connection. Together with code running on a computer it can store ISS pass predictions. When the ISS is predicted to be overhead the LED’s turn on.

Technical info about the lamp can be found on the documentation page.