ISS over Kitt Peak

These first 2 images are 30 second exposures at f/2.8, ISO 400, taken back to back.  The first shows the ISS trailing over the planet Mars while the 2nd it is above the star Arcturus.  The Moon is in the upper right corner.  The building is the Spacewatch 1.8-m dome.  All the images in this post are taken with my Canon 70D and a 10mm f/2.8 fisheye lens and identical exposures.

Turning the camera to the right, the ISS is now setting into the northeastern sky over Tucson which is lighting up the clouds a bit between the building and the rock.

The ISS is still visible as a dimming trail in the clouds above Tucson in the lower right edge of this image.  The domes visible from upper right and then across the bottom of the frame are the 1.8-m Spacewatch telescope, the 4-meter Mayall Telescope (the largest on Kitt Peak), the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok Telescope, the Spacewatch 36 inch telescope and the rolloff roof of the Super LOTUS telescope.  The Moon is just barely in the frame at top left and you can also find the Big Dipper near top center and the planet Saturn above the Super-LOTUS dome at the left edge of the frame.

Clouds and stars

The thin cirrus slowly thickened during the night while I've been observing at the 90 inch Bok telescope of Steward Observatory on Kitt Peak.  With these two photos, you can see lots of stars, but if the clouds weren't there, you'd see even more.  The first image shows a view towards the southeast from the "Bok Walk" on the south side of the 90 inch dome.  On the right you can see the McMath solar telescope with the lights of Nogales Arizona lighting up the clouds above that town.  On the left is Tucson doing an even better job of lighting the clouds overhead.  This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens and an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 6400 on my Canon 70D.

This view is towards the south with the McMath solar telescope on the left and in the foreground are the two Spacewatch Telescopes.  The white dome on the right is our 36 inch telescope and the silver dome to its left is our 1.8-m telescope.  In the sky you can see the Milky Way rising from the central horizon towards the upper right with Orion and his faithful hunting dog Canis Major with the brightest star in the nighttime sky, Sirius, to his lower left and Jupiter is the brightest object in the sky at top just right of center.  This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens and an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 6400.