Suspected Iridium flare
This is a flare I caught whilst trying to photograph a meteor. Flares are caused by satellites glinting in the sunlight, and are easily seen after the sun has set or just before sunrise when the sun is far enough below the horizon for the sky to be dark, and just at the right angle to reflect the rays towards an observer on the ground. An impressive flare can reach a maximum magnitude of -8 mag., which is as bright as the moon when it's just a slim crescent(a full moon is about -12mag.). I think this flare was around -5 or -6 mag.. Unfortunately the exposure time was not long enough to record the whole flare(I have to keep times down or else the sky would start to blow out completely because of all the light pollution here in the city suburbs!), but it did capture the brightest part I think.
The photo was taken from a bedroom window, with my D70 mounted on a tripod,which was wedged between the wall and radiator, and by keeping my finger pressed on the shutter button in continuous mode - not very stable, but it seems to work fairly well. I have since bought a clamp which can be easily attached to the window frame, and use Nikon Capture software to trigger the camera remotely, which is a much better way of doing things!
Date : May 2005
Location : London,UK
Technical Info : Nikon D70,28/2,tripod
Exposure : ISO200 ~6 or 7 sec. @ 2.0
Post Processing : Edited in Photoshop - Cropped (66%?)
Notes : Shot in RAW mode. Exposure compensation used after shot was taken
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