After a few cloudy night attempts, I finally get a view of NASA's experimental ACS3 Solar Sail cruising by as it is being pushed along by light of our Sun.
While only 33' square and about 600 miles away, it shines gently on a clear night.
During the 7 minute journey overhead, I could not stop thinking about the early explorers trusting their adventures to nothing but the wind to propel their sailing ships across uncharted oceans.
- Charlie Favret. 10:02pm September 19th, 2024. Round Rock, Texas
Technical Details:
Olympus OM-1 camera with 17mm f/1.2 lens
set at f/1.2, ISO 400, 4 seconds in Live Composite Mode
total exposure time is 7 minutes, composited in-camera as a single image
Artist concept rendering courtesy of NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart.
The "+" sign looking portion in the center is about the size of a microwave oven.
