One can view the International Space Station ISS from the ground. It’s a fairly large piece of orbiting human engineering. But what of the interstaller ships of fiction. The ones so large they block out suns just before the fatal attack?

Recently, the Lounge of the Lab Lemming explored this very concept.

Science fiction generally depicts people walking around on the ground, or starships floating close above a planet, but with little connection between the two; The only time I can recall people on the ground seeing spacecraft above are when the Death Star explodes in Return of the Jedi, and when the remains of the Enterprise re-enter the atmosphere in Star Trek 3. But if you can see the ISS from here on Earth, then surely a larger science fiction (or alien) spacecraft would be brighter still.

Drop below the jump to see a comparison against the moon.
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