It’s been a productive few days for taking nighttime images of bright objects in the night sky including planets, stars and satellites.

On June 1, 2014, a check of the ephemeris for satellite passages noted that the International Space Station (ISS) would pass very close to Polaris (i.e., the “North Star”) at 2204 MST, followed by an Iridium flare at 2231 MST. I set up the camera to take 30s exposures from 2202-2232 MST so I could get a set of star trails with the ISS arcing across the northern sky. Two satellite flares can be seen in the lower right — the one I was expecting plus a bonus flare.

 

 

A few days later, on June 5, 2014, for just a few seconds the planet Venus (mag. -4.0) was only the second brightest object (rather than the brightest) in the eastern twilight sky as an Iridium flare brightened to magnitude -5.7.