International Space Station meets comet Neowise at twilight, July 19 2042TU.

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Photographer:

Giancarlo Gotta

Location of Photo:

Taken from the parking lot of city park outside Gamalero, northern Italy

Date/Time of photo:

July 19, 2042UT

Equipment:

Simple smartphone and photographic tripod. Smartphone was set for manual operations, no zoom, then focal lenght 2 mm and lens diameter 1.6 mm. 8 second exposure, 1600 ISO equivalent.

Description:

An experimental session to verify smartphone capabilities, taking both summer constellation large fields and Neowise shots. It's a serendipity shot, I did not check International Space Station passages overhead for the week, but I was able to get a single shot of ISS crossing Ursa Maior, below Dubhe - Merak line and Neowise at 2042UT. I strongly advise new astronomers to use their equipment to get acquainted with night sky: smartphones can picture all naked eye objects, and a little beyond that, making people create their own star charts in the process. It will be very interesting comparing next weekend DSLR imaging with simpler smartphones shots.