Flare in the Milky Way over Utah

Utah has some great star viewing thanks to low light pollution, here I got lucky and caught an Iridium Flare glinting off the sun smack dab in the middle of the incredibly bright Milky Way. Iridium Flares are produced when the sun catches the highly reflective surface of an Iridium telecommunications satellite.

It's possible to plan a shot like this by using an online predictive calculator such as available at Heavens-Above ( http://www.heavens-above.com/ ) . Or you can just get incredibly lucky as I did here. ;-)))

Have a great weekend everyone!


Shot notes: Single frame, and how I learned my camera clock is waaaay off. Correcting for the time issue this flare was indeed predicted by Heavens-Above.

UtahUTNightFlareIridiumSatelliteMilkyWaySkyStarStarsFisher TowersSilhouetteNatureLandscapeNightscapeNocturneNikonD300Tokina 1116AstronomyAstrophotographyAstrometrydotnetidalpha20090837623720AstrometrydotnetstatusfailedMilky Way2009Iridium Flare

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