June 09, 2007
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
The New York Times carried an article about the future during the week. Apparently, in 100 billion years time, an astronomer on Earth will hardly have any stars to look at - they will all have travelled so far from our own planet that there will be no light for telescopes to stare at. Mind you, given that the sun only have about 5 billion useful years left, its not something to stay awake at night worrying about.
Right now, the clear summer nights are full of stars, and tonight, the brightest one is the work of Man. The picture above shows the transit of the International Space Station [ISS] as it blazes across the sky above Galway Bay (that's the diving platform on Salthill Promenade at the bottom of the picture). You can see the current location of the ISS here.
Camera=5D, lens=Canon 24-105@24mm, aperture=f11, speed= 54sec, ISO640, tripod.
stars, ISS, international, space, station, salthill, ireland, galway, irishblogs, photoblogs, photography, galwayblogs, monasette, north atlantic skyline,Canon, 5D, june, 2007
Posted by Monasette at June 9, 2007 01:59 AMCool. Your night shots are lovely.
Posted by: Johnboy at June 11, 2007 04:01 PMJohn, what's the line coming down from the center top of the photo? Contrail or...? I didn't notice it until now, but I was wearing old specs yesterday.
The photo is stunning,and I did check the link but naturally our sky is a mess of heavy clouds now thanks to a cold front of some days duration. Typical Idaho.
Posted by: Angharod at June 12, 2007 09:14 AMThe line or streak is the path of the ISS as it travels across the sky. The ISS is basically a big lump of shiny metal and appears to shine brighter than any star in the sky.
The photo is a long exposure, so the white line is the blurred path of the ISS as it passed over Galway Bay.
BTW, there are some stars in the picture too, and they appear slightly blurred (rather than as sharp pin pricks of light). The reason is that, in the 54 seconds that the camera shutter was open to take the photograph, the Earth's orbit caused the stars to blur. The blur of the stars is left to right, reflecting Earth orbit, whereas the blur of the ISS is vertical, reflecting the path of the spaceship as it orbits Earth.
Nothing is cooler than spacetravel!
Posted by: John at June 12, 2007 09:45 AMOkay, cool...that makes sense. *S* I can't take sky shots worth a damn without a tripod, and even then it's just a wild stab in the dark. Thanks.
Posted by: Angharod at June 12, 2007 07:10 PM