Images of the ISS

[Tony G]

Hi all,

I managed tonight what I failed to do a couple of times the weekend at DSC  , and that was to take a photo of the ISS (and actually manage to save it as well), but there was a bit of a bonus tonight as it was passing Mars and Saturn,


This is the ISS passing Mars @ 20.35pm



And as it passed Saturn a minute later @ 20.36pm



These were all taken with a Canon 350D and a EF 75-300 lens, (except the sky chart from Heavens-Above ) and as you can see no processing.

Tony G

[MarkS]

I had a go tonight as well:



The ATV is clearly visible.  But I didn't manage Mars or Saturn!

Details:  Canon EOS 300D on Celestron C11 at F10.  Shutter 1/1000s, ISO 1000

[MarkS]

Tony,

Your timing looks good!  How long were those exposures?

Mark

[Tony G]

Mark,

The shutter speed was 1/4s and ISO 800, this was due to the fact that I wanted to get Mars in the image as well, and the shorter the exposure the fainter it was.
Saturn was a bonus though it doesn't look very much like Saturn, but there was enough time to turn the tripod around and take a couple of images as it passed.
Your images turned out great, (getting a bit of an expert on this now) and hopefully I can follow down the same sort of lines as you in the near future, just have to wait until the next lot of passes, as alot of the -2.4 and -2.5 mag fly passes have finished until next lot of evening passes, and with work, I don't fancy getting up for the morning passes.

Tony G

[Fay]

Tony, you have done really well & will now blaze on now you are getting the hang of setting it up.

Mark,
what can I say, looks like your best yet, great!

[JohnP]

Well done Tony mate - great job - I know how hard you tried & how frustrated you were at DSC trying to get this. Looks like you got DSLR Focus & everything working together. I look forward to seeing your attempts with longer focal length next time around...

John

[Mike]

Good images Mark and Tony. I will post mine up when I get a spare second.

Mark - When you do those images of the ISS do you motorise the mount or is it handheld? Also, how do you aim it to ensure you get it in the frame for the pass?

[MarkS]

Mike - I'm not motorising the mount (though I'd like to try it sometime!) - I release the clutches on the EQ6 and swing it by hand.   I track the ISS through the finderscope and whenever the ISS is near the centre of the crosshairs I fire the camera using a remote control button - I suppose it's a bit like being a WW2 gunner!

One other trick I use is the following:  last night's pass had a maximum altitude of 60deg SSW.  So I set the mount up so the polar axis was pointing in the opposite direction NNE with an elevation of 30deg off the horizontal.  Then, to track the ISS by hand you move the scope in the equatorial direction and very little dec adjustment is required.  This means that for a directly overhead pass the polar axis will be horizontal as shown in the picture below.  The scope is pointing West and it just has to drop gently backwards to track the ISS as it flies overhead - almost no side to side adjustement is required.  I adjusted the counterbalance weights so the scope will naturally fall (slowly!) backwards of its own accord.

[Tony G]

Mark,

I was just looking at the images of the ISS that people send in from different places around the world on Spaceweather,com and was going to suggest that your images from last night would be excellent, with the ISS and the ATV, as they only have streaks like mine (all be it, a little more in focus and with background), have a look and submit some images.

Tony G