ISS in the past year

It's time for some summary.
So far there were four occasions when I was able to take shots of the International Space Station.
Here they are in chronological order:

08.06.2013

13.08.2013

20.10.2013

27.12.2013

Venus

Yesterday at ISS hunt I had an approximate half an hour till 17:11 ISS pass. It was a bright clear sunset, Venus was such an obvious target to spent some time with. Although the air was shaking due the harsh wind blowing from east , when I set the controls to the heart of Venus :) the surprise came. 

I really never spent time on Venus, probably once but luckily it was a full Venus than. So never assumed a crescent Venus exists.

Than I realised how dumb I am, of course there is a crescent Venus. I found this drawing on twitter. It explains why we see the Venus the same way than we see our Moon, in different phases.

It also explaines why will Venus become from a sunset object to a sunrise object. Soon it disappears as it positions itself in-between Sun and Earth, just like Moon does. Of course Venus and Moon has a different orbit and motion relatively to Earth, but still the way they are lit is similar and results similar visual experience.

So see you Venus in the morning skies on the 11th January....

ISS today

Today's try on ISS reminds me how hard it is to capture a fine sharp image of it. Not my best attempt but still some details are visble. Also some photos below attached.

Over 7100 frames captured, but my guess is that the sharpness wasn't the best at all. I've done this a few times and this amount of frames should have a few very good one. 

To be honest ISS appeared at its highest of 35º so because of its distance that might be result of my lost sharpness. Anyway it was a lovely evening and I did not come home empty handed :)))

The gif below shows its journey from west towards south-east. When it first appeared, coming from west just after an hour after sunset, Sun still reflecting on the solar panels. But as it kept moving into the direction of the dark side of Earth, less and less sunlight reflected back towards my eyes so less and less is visible from ISS from my location. By the end of the gif - approximately 2:30 mins - the solar panels disappeared completely.

Let's add that the whole duration of ISS's crossing the sky was roughly 6 mins but due to low clouds I couldn't continue shooting. 

A gif of 14 frames which I think has something to show -
during the journey it took in 2:30min crossing the sky.

The very first useful frame, probably the best with all four solar panels

Because of its orientation - I guess - already two of four solar panels are dissapeared

Jupiter with surprise

I managed to capture the Red spot and the shadow of one of its moons Europa.