Iridium .....

..... 52

It's now day 14 of my work stint without a day off and all work without play is making Mr John a very dull boy ( roll on Tuesday ).

By the time I looked out of the window today it was dark, but with a lovely clear sky. Those of you that know me will know I am a bit of a satellite geek. Most people look up at the sky and marvel at the stars and planets, not me I marvel at the pieces of space junk that mankind has put up there.

This is a 30 second exposure that captures a light flare from the Iridium 52 communications satellite as the sun refected of it's flat metal panels whilst it flew overhead at 18:27:31 this evening. At a magnitude of only -2 it's not a particulary bright flare, but it's as bright as the brightest stars in the sky.

This is the first flare photo I have taken with the Nikon and I was fairly impressed at how clear it came out for a fast moving dim flare, so I feel it is worthy of blipping for that reason alone. More stars can be seen in Large mode. You can see a couple more Iridium flare photos in my blipfolio.

I have some more work to do this evening to prepare for another long day tomorrow, but if the sky stays clear I may pop out a bit later and try and take some starry sky photos, as I am being a bit dull ( less than magnitude -2 ) today's blip is .....


..... Iridium 52