Seeing the Space Station

My recent quest to watch the ISS pass over was rewarded this evening on the 8:53 orbital pass. I found the time and likely magnitued on HeavensAbove walked out the front door at 8:50, and right on schedule, a nice yellowish bright object began rising in the W-NW. I was actually surprised that it wasn't faster, but then when I watch it on the satellite tracker on the web, it doesn't exactly race along the screen either -- even at 16,500 an hour, it takes over an hour for it to get all the way around, and it was visible for close to 3 min.

The listed magnitude was -2.5, which is brighter than the brightest star, and close to Venus (magnitude 4.0) ... I'd guess it was about that as it got to around 45 degrees, but I was surprised that it was already getting dimmer by the time it went over and when it got to like 70 degrees in the E-SE sky, it rapidly declined in brightness and winked out -- my assumption is that it went into the earths shadow at that point.

It is easy to see, so probably worth going out on a reasonable evening and seeing it.