A grand display of noctilucent clouds at dawn on July 21, 2017, looking northeast and east with the 26-day-old thin waning crescent Moon just rising, and Venus bright as a “morning star” at right. This was the best NLC display of the summer to date, though many nights were plagued with cloud to the north or forest fire smoke. But seeing NLCs as high as this in the sky and well to the east, as at right is rare. This is a two-segment panorama (with each panel a single exposure) with the 35mm lens and Canon 6D. Stitched with ACR with Perspective projection.
A pair of Iridium satellite flares at dawn on July 15, 2017, the one below (Iridium 54) being the first to appear, at a predicted magnitude of -7, while the one above (Iridium 90) appeared one minute later at magnitude -3. Venus is the bright object at lower left in the dawn twilight above Aldbaran and below the Pleaides. Capella is at far left. The waning Moon is overexposed at far right. I shot this about 20 minutes after an ISS pass through the same area of sky. A useful image for comparing Iridiums to Venus for brightness. This is a composite of 8 exposures for the Iridiums, masked and layered onto one exposure for the sky to prevent trailing of the stars if all exposures were stacked unmasked. All 10 second exposures at f/2.5 with the Rokinon 14mm SP and Canon 6D. I used the app GoSatWatch to find the predictions, sky locations, and satellite identities,
The International Space Station in a dawn pass, as it flies away to the east after passing overhead. This was the morning of July 15, 2017. Venus is the bright object at lower left; the overexposed waning Moon is at right. The Pleiades is above Venus, the Hyades cluster is just to the right of Venus. Capella is the bright star at far left. This is a composite stack of 24 exposures for the ISS, masked onto a single background image of the sky taken just before the ISS entered the frame. This kept the stars as points rather than trails, while the ISS trailed across the sky. The gaps are from the 2 second interval between 10-second exposures. All with the Canon 6D and 14mm Rokinon lens at f/2.5.
