It may be daytime, but often the moon’s still up there. Today it was 26 days old, rose at 03:11 last night, set at 16:35 this afternoon. But at 11:48 it was almost overhead and only about 12% illuminated.

Very low contrast, tough to see, and I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been looking for a plane that was flying around in the same area. With my eyes set on focusing at a distance for the plane, the crescent moon just popped out of that blue background.

When last we saw our plucky hero, he had seen the ISS pass that faded into an orbital sunset right above his head and was urging everyone in SoCal and adjoining regions to watch this ISS pass tonight:

Image from Heavens-Above.com

Click on the image to see it gloriously full-sized.

One of my best to date I believe. The sky was a little bit brighter than last night (being closer to sunset) so I switched to 4-second exposures instead of 5-seconds. I had my setup location correct in respect to the point where the ISS rose up from the horizon, so it came up in that gap between the trees and thus saw it about a minute earlier. In addition, I had a good (i.e., lucky) guess on where the top of the frame was, so the final frame was perfect and I didn’t shoot any additional frames beyond that and waste time going to my second setup position.

It only took 28 seconds to fold the tripod, run down the little hill in the front yard in the dark without tripping and splooting and dying, cross the street, set the tripod back up, and start shooting toward the west. Not bad, decent planning.

The big question I had here was whether or not I would get the final shot showing the ISS fading into orbital sunset.

I did! This crop of that last image just before the ISS went behind the trees (already fading due to the view through the smog and haze and bright lights of downtown Los Angeles and the beautiful San Fernando Valley) clearly shows it turning orange and fading in brightness over that four seconds.

Then it was a sprint back to the front yard to go looking for the Dragon spacecraft with Crew-5, astronauts from the US, Japan, and Russia, which launched this morning. Unfortunately, I was thinking their flight profile would be similar to a Soyuz launch, where the Soyuz reaches orbit pretty close to the ISS and catches up over just a couple of hours. That was a bad assumption.

This is the SpaceX “Follow Dragon” site and, assuming it’s fairly accurate, when I had just seen the ISS come over and was expecting Dragon to be right behind, Dragon was actually over southern China, on a path toward northern Japan and Alaska.

But wait…

They have to be in the same orbital plane, which means that Dragon will be over SoCal in about 25 to 30 minutes. Right?

So I went out at the appointed time…

…as Dragon was supposed to be coming up on the San Francisco area and headed right toward SoCal.

I kept shooting pictures until…

…ISS was supposed to be well to our south, off of Baja.

Did I ever see the Dragon? Nope, no sign of it. On the other hand, there was a very bright moon, a little haze for all of that moonlight to reflect off of, and the Dragon is much smaller than the ISS and doesn’t have any of the HUGE solar panels that the ISS has and thus is much dimmer.

Maybe the photos showed what the eye couldn’t see? Nope. No joy.

So enjoy the photos of the ISS pass, and go to Heavens-Above.com to put in your location and see when the ISS (or other satellites) will pass through your skies.

Finally, if you’re curious, on the first big picture above, look for the Big Dipper at the bottom, just above the trees, then follow the “pointer” stars at the end of the “bowl” to see that one star that’s a dot, not a streak. That’s Polaris, the North Star, and it’s a dot and all of the other stars are streaks because the Earth is spinning. Polaris never moves because it’s directly above the pole, but all of the other stars will show longer and longer streaks the further out they are from Polaris, because they move in the sky more as the Earth spins.

In the second big picture above, the really bright “star” at the bottom left between the trees is Jupiter, and that huge glare on the right side is the Moon.

It’s time for ISS passes again in the evening over SoCal.

Image from Heavens-Above.com

A partial pass, with the station fading into orbital sunset right overhead. Okay, let’s fight the traffic incoming to Burbank and take a look!

Oh, yeah! Click on that image to see it full sized! I love that big, heavy, wide angle, light bucket of a lens with the razor sharp focus!

So, I slightly misjudged where the bottom of the frame was, so we picked up some glare from our kitchen lights and the laundry room skylights. To get a rooftop-to-zenith angle for the camera it’s at a really awkward angle on the tripod. Good to know for next time.

The ISS was coming from the northwest, rising behind those Italian cypress trees and headed toward where the moon was up behind me and to the left.

Also visible are two airliners going into Burbank’s Runway 8. The lower bright diagonal line is Southwest flight #1555 coming in from Oakland, while the curving line on the right margin (with the red & green navigation lights showing as well) is JetBlue flight #359 coming in from JFK in New York City. (Images from FlightRadar 24.)

Did we catch the ISS fading into orbital sunset? Well…kinda? It’s really, really close, and if you look close at the final frame of the sequence you CAN see the trail fading as it moves from the bottom right to upper left.

If the camera had been positioned a smidge higher and the frame included less of the roof and more of the sky just above… Coulda, woulda, shoulda!

On the other hand, there is a hidden treat in this frame. Can you find it? The “coat hanger asterism” is in there if you click on that image and look at it full sized. It’s not bright, but it is clear if you know what to look for.

So, I told you all of that to tell you about this…

If you’re in SoCal tomorrow night and the sky’s clear, go out and look for an EVEN BETTER ISS PASS.

A little earlier, rising at 19:16 in the northwest, but with autumn here it should be plenty dark and the ISS will be REALLY bright. Again the ISS’s path will be almost straight overhead, and while it will fade to darkness in orbital sunset before it gets to the far horizon, it still covers most of the sky.

EVEN BETTER, SpaceX is supposed to launch the NASA Crew-5 mission tomorrow afternoon. They don’t dock at the ISS until the day after launch, so if they get off planet on time tomorrow you may be able to see the Crew Dragon following the ISS, trailing along on the same orbital track.

Take a chance to see it if you get a chance! Let me know if you see it, and wave to the crews, and let me know if you saw it!

You probably heard – Artemis didn’t get off the ground this morning. Part of it was technical and mechanical, some sticky valves and temperatures out of range, communications issues. Part of it was weather, lighting in the area that delayed fueling and then storms building up as they were trying to decide to press ahead and try to solve the engine issues. In the end it was a good decision to stand down, solve the technical and mechanical problems, wait for a better day to fly.

This evening, just before sunset, the destination was making a most beautiful appearance in the evening sky.

Along with one of the obligatory jets on final approach to LAX after a 15 hour flight from Asia.

When it got a little bit darker and the contrast was a little better and the Moon wasn’t down in the coastal fog and atmospheric soup, a bit of detail could be seen.

Click on it to blow it up – that big round spot on the illuminated limb is Mare Crisium.

If I wasn’t in deadlines up to my eyeballs and trying to get out of town to Worldcon in less than 48 hours, it would have been tempting to haul the ‘scope out of the back yard.

But I am and I am, so I didn’t.

We’ll get an idea tomorrow afternoon of when NASA might try to launch again when they have an update on Artemis’ status. If they can repair it on the pad fast, there’s another launch window on Friday. If they can repair it on the pad but need the weekend, there’s a third launch window next Monday. If they can’t repair it on the pad or it’s going to take more than a week, they’ll have to roll the vehicle back to the Vehicle Assembly Building, which means a launch attemp no earlier than October.

When we’re ready, the Moon will still be there. I have faith.