Failed to photograph ISS

[MarkS]

I completely failed to get an ISS pic tonight but I did manage to prove the principle of a new technique.

The idea is this - instead of having to look through the finder scope to keep the ISS centred whilst swinging the main scope, it's much easier to use a webcam attached to a lens.

So I attached a webcam to a 50mm lens and viewed it on the laptop PC screen.  Then on the laptop screen marked out a small rectangle that corresponded to the imaging camera's field of view (this must be done using an object at infinity i.e. a star to prevent parallax problems).  Then, once the ISS appears, the name of the game is to try and keep it within that rectangle and fire the shutter when it is.

So what went wrong?  I attached the 50mm lens on top of the Celestron C11 with tape and there was just too much relative movement so the rectangle on the screen no longer beared any relation to what the imaging camera was seeing.

The next time the ISS appears the evening is at the next Deep Sky Camp.  So everyone can watch me making a fool of myself!

Mark

[Mike]

Was that the incredibly bright object passing over at about 07.30(ish) today?

[RobertM]

Mark, Sounds more like a game of pacman without the noise

Mike, sorry didn't see it..

[MarkS]

It passed over shortly after 7:50pm.  I didn't see anything at 7:30pm.  Was it an orange ball

[Mike]

Must have been 7.50 then. I was only guessing the time.