You are reading a single comment by @Sam and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
Is it going to get any closer, Paul? Was considering trying to take a shot of it, but my camera/lens is pretty puny.
Sam-
The ISS? I hope it doesn’t get much closer than this - it is usually at least 416km up, and if it were to drop a bit, I think it would start to encounter some atmospheric drag that would cause it to drop further out of orbit and crash.
To get even this fuzzy view, you need a focal length of about 2 metres.
-
The altitude is plotted by NASA, note how it is periodically boosted back up to a higher altitude before drifting back down due to atmospheric drag
https://heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx
Looks like they overshot back in August and had to correct.
Ludd
Backstop
It’s tiny. Just to the left of the bright star in the upper right quadrant. It is 161 million miles away. But that is only about 9 light minutes, whereas the two galaxies near the bottom of this shot are so far away that their light has taken over 11 million years to get here.
Shot with a 200mm lens from my garden last night.