Iridium 14 Flare

Recently I missed a beautiful ISS pass because of some clouds. A solid 88 degree pass gone just like that, it left me really frustrated. Looking for other things to do I realized that I'd never seen an Iridium flare before, and since the old Iridium satellites are going to be decommissioned soon I figured I'd better get to it! The new Iridium satellites aren't the same design as the old ones, and won't produce the tell-tale flares anymore. By mid-2019 Iridium flares will likely no longer be predictable as their orbits are allowed to decay.

It turns out that Iridium 14 had a good flare from my backyard at a reasonable time in the evening. Looking around online I saw that they last 5-10 seconds, so I had to guess when to start my 30 second exposure. I think I started it a couple seconds too late, but I still really like this picture for a first try.

Iridium 14 Flare - F3.5, 30 second shutter, ISO 500

The satellite is moving down and to the left, so you can see that the fade isn't symmetrical on either side because the flare was already visible when I hit the shutter. I would have liked it to be more symmetrical but I'm still really happy with how my first try turned out.