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| ISS and Dragon CRS-9. Click to enlarge |
Last night was a clear and very warm, moonlit night (21 deg C). It was warm enough to observe in shirt and shorts. I observed MUOS 5 and USA 224, but the highlight of the night came in early morning twilight: a splendid pass of the ISS being chased by SpaceX's Dragon CRS-9 cargo vehicle launched July 18 and berthing to the ISS at the moment of writing.
The image above shows them, crossing Aquila at 1:32:42 UT (3:32 local time): ISS is the brighter object in top, the Dragon is chasing it, some 20-25 seconds behind it.
It was a splendid view, seeing the two objects majestically sailing across te sky. The Dragon was very bright an easy to see: mag +2 when clearing the rooftop in the southwest, and briefly attaining magnitude 0 while decsending in the southeast.
The image was made with my Canon EOS 60D and an EF 2.0/35mm lens set at F2.2, 5 seconds exposure at 800 ISO. This was 9.5 hours before the Dragon was captured by the ISS's robotic arm for berthing.
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