I don't get why ISS passes vary so much in brightness.
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same as moon phases varying in brightness? ie depends on the relative position of our angle to ISS and the Sun?
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with each pass being at a different time of day and year, the incident angle of the sun to the station must vary
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and since it has odd-shaped surface features, sunlight will sometimes bounce off in a way that makes it really bright, sometimes not
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Does the ISS rotate at all? If so, it wouldn't be surprising if the amount of light reflected varied quite a bit...
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Don't see anything about rotation in Wikipedia. It _is_ dropping from space at > 7% per year!
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