Last night (17th March 2009) I was able to capture a few photos of the ISS and Discovery very close to docking. The combination of circumstance that has to fall into place is stagering, firstly, there has to be a shuttle about to dock, and that doesn’t exactly happen every week. Next, the orbit of the IIS and shuttle has to be favorable so that the orbital ground track pass will near enough my house to be able to see it, this is not so tricky, pretty much anywhere over Westen Europe will do.  However, timing is critical, it must be just in that sweet spot of dusk where the sun will still reflect off the space craft, but it’s dark enough at home that you can take a fairly long exposure without it being blown out.  Finaly, it has to be clear; a cloudy night would ruin it.  As you can see below, the clouds nearly did. I’m pleased with this shot, but if you want to see a better one check out Marco Langbroek’s blog