Tag: night photography

The final flight of the Endeavour

As the Endeavour (STS-134) mission comes to an end NASA is one step closer to the final chapter of the Space Shuttle program. The Discovery has already flown its final mission. The upcoming flight of Atlantis will be the final and last shuttle mission.

ISS and STS-134 along with frozen cloud of ice particles from a vented tank over northern Arizona.
ISS and STS-134 along with frozen cloud of ice particles from a vented tank over northern Arizona.

Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:55 pm MST 29 May 2011 (0355 UTC 30 May 2011) and began a slow separation from the ISS in preparation for its landing on Wednesday. The double flyby of the ISS and the STS-134 Endeavour over northern Arizona early this morning resulted in this spectacular image as the two spacecraft emerged from Earth’s shadow. In preparation for its return to Earth Endeavour had vented its tanks creating an ice cloud in space that was moving along with the two craft.

This is a composite of eight images of 15 seconds duration. There is a small gap between each image as the camera shutter briefly closed. Also visible in this image in the upper right is the faint track of another earth orbiting satellite — most likely COSMOS 2228 Nova 1.

Edit: Received information that the satellite is Nova1.

The final flight of the Discovery

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An era has come to an end as the NASA space shuttle Discovery landed earlier this week after a successful mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This was the last flight for Discovery and it will now be retired to a museum.

After Discovery undocked from the ISS their orbits began to separate with the shuttle flying across the sky a few tens of seconds earlier than the ISS. On the night before returning to Kennedy Space Center, the ISS and Discovery made two evening twilight passes across the southwestern United States.

ISS and STS-133 transiting the northern sky above the San Francisco Peaks.
ISS and STS-133 transiting the northern sky above the San Francisco Peaks.

The first pass came early in the evening with a still bright twilight sky. The ISS and Discovery only rose to about 17 degrees above the horizon and this made it easy to capture an image with the San Francisco Peaks and the Kachina wetlands in the same photograph.

ISS and STS-133 climbing out of the western sky and entering the Earths shadow as they approach the lunar disk.
ISS and STS-133 climbing out of the western sky and entering the Earths shadow as they approach the lunar disk.

About 95 minutes later a second pass occurred. This time the two spacecraft arose from the western sky and climbed higher towards the crescent moon before disappearing into the Earths shadow.

Only two more shuttle missions remain and then, truly, it will be the end of an era.

Crescent moon and Venus in the morning sky

One of the advantages (and their aren’t many) of working shift work is that you get to see a lot of sunrises. While many marvel about beautiful sunsets, far fewer can say the same of the sunrise.

Crescent moon and Venus in morning twilight.
Crescent moon and Venus in morning twilight.

I wish I could say that I planned this photograph and was patiently waiting for the right moment. But, no, I wasn’t even paying attention to the sky. On impulse, I walked to the window and peered out to see if there were any clouds lit up by the not-yet-risen sun and was pleased to see the thin crescent moon so near the planet Venus. Luckily, the camera was nearby and I shot this image of the celestial pair with some trees in the foreground to add some detailed texture.

Watching the International Space Station amidst the scenery of Sedona

As readers of this site already know, I enjoy photographing the International Space Station (ISS) as it makes its twilight flyovers. Most of my ISS images have been taken in Flagstaff and nearby environs. Recently, however, I made a trip to the lower elevations of Sedona to attempt to photograph the ISS amidst the scenery of Sedona.

This transit only got to about 20 degrees elevation above the horizon so it was important to find a location with a good view to the northwest — but also an interesting view. After looking at the ephemeris for the transit (rise time, highest elevation, set time, etc.) I decided that I could get an interesting photograph from the Brins Mesa trailhead area north of Sedona.

We arrived about 15 minutes before the transit so there was enough time to survey the area and select the most appropriate spot to set up the tripod and camera. After a few test shots, I was ready for the transit. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying close attention and I missed the first 10-20 seconds as it rose in the west. No problem! I started the camera but then realized I had failed to set the shutter to continuous shooting mode. I use continuous mode so that I can take a series of 10-15 second exposures then composite them later. By keeping the exposures short there is less chance of overexposing the twilight sky.

All was not lost as I only missed the first two 10-second images but managed to capture the next seven images. After compositing the individual images in Photoshop and using the Lighten blend mode, I got the following result:

International Space Station (ISS) transiting the evening twilight sky in Sedona, Arizona.

There was a bit of camera shake in the first image as I was still fiddling with camera settings while the shutter was open! But overall the image managed to capture what I set out to do: photograph the ISS as a long streak of light with the fabulous Red Rocks of Sedona as a foreground.

International Space Station transits

A few weeks ago we had a couple of nights in which the International Space Station (ISS) made some evening twilight transits that were visible across northern Arizona. The first night the ISS transited from the northwest across the sky to the east. As it swung across the evening sky it passed near Mizar in Ursa Major then near Polaris in Ursa Minor. The following night it traveled from west to southeast and passed near the Moon and Jupiter before it entered into the Earth’s shadow.

International Space Station transiting the skies across northern Arizona.
International Space Station transiting the skies across northern Arizona.

Both of these final images are composites. Each was shot with a 16mm ultra-wide angle lens at f/4.0, ISO 800, and 10s exposure. For the photograph above, 16 images were composited. For the photograph below, seven images were used. In Photoshop, images are assembled as layers then blended using Lighten mode. This allows the streak of light from the ISS to show through all layers. The advantage to this method — compared to a single image of longer duration — is that the sky does not become overexposed. Instead the result is a dark background upon which the ISS flies.

International Space Station transiting the skies across northern Arizona.
International Space Station transiting the skies across northern Arizona.

Both images were taken at the Kachina Wetlands located a few miles to the south of Flagstaff, Arizona. This location provides wide open skies for viewing objects low on the horizon and offers ponds of water that produce wonderful reflections of the stars.

To find out when the ISS will fly across your area, visit either of these sites:

SpaceWeather.com

Heavens-Above