Just caught one of my best astrophotographs yet, which was a long exposure (106 seconds) to capture the International Space Station speeding across the early evening sky here in southwest Ohio. I was a little late getting things ready for this shot, so by the time I had the shot framed and focused, it was too late to take a test exposure. I had to use my gut instinct to set the ISO and aperture for an indeterminate bulb exposure. I only knew it might be around two minutes (give or take a minute). This was made even trickier by the fact that there was still a hint of twilight left, and I couldn't rely on my previous dark-sky experience.

Well, I got lucky, because the result out of the camera was about 2/3 stop overexposed (compared to what you see here). In my mind, that's perfect, because lowering the exposure on a shot like this is always better than pushing it higher, as it keeps the noise way down. It's not like you're trying to recover highlight detail from the stars, anyway.

Notice the path of the ISS streaks right through the Big Dipper on the right, and those stars have slight star trails. A longer shutter (including well before or after the ISS passed) would have had more interesting star trails, but also a much fainter streak from the station. It's a tough balance.

I did crop a little on the bottom to get some power lines out of the frame, and I used a slight gradient filter in Lightroom to lower the brightness near the horizon and even out the sky's tone. But overall, this has had very light manipulation for an astro shot.

[Drewman]

Excellent shot, Dave! Your composition is perfect. Very impressive.

[Ash]

Well done Dave.
A little more foreground would have added more perspective, but the streak itself is an attractive feature in the image.

[justDIY]

great capture! I'll have to give it a go tomorrow night....

[aerodave]

Well done Dave.
A little more foreground would have added more perspective, but the streak itself is an attractive feature in the image.

Ash, I totally agree that more foreground would be better. But in this case, the foreground sucked...very cluttered and ugly. So in this case, leaving it out was probably the better option. It didn't help that I decided to take this shot about 20 minutes before the ISS's pass. If I had had more time, I would have sought out a better location.

But I have learned a little about capturing this kind of shot, and next time, with a little more planning, I'll find a nice foreground for context. This is also one of the rare times I've wanted something much wider than 16mm. My LBA hiatus was short-lived.