International Space Station 8th April 2017

[Orion]

There is no section for ISS imaging, so I have put this here for now.

 

I had a go at imaging the International Space Station on 8 April 2017 with my 8.75” reflector resting on my lap (no mount), and the mirror end sitting on a cushion as a pivot.  I focused the camera on the bright gibbous moon before ISS.  In order to track, I used a Rigel Quick finder, stuck on the side of the telescope with Duct tape. I kept the telescope trained on the ISS by watching it through the finder and keeping it in the red circle.  Then triggered the shutter as many times as possible with a remote cable release.  ISO 1600 and 1/800th second. Canon 1100d.  The image of the ISS at prime focus is very small, and these images are crops of a very small portion of the 1100d sensor.  I have many more images to play around with, but these were the first ones I looked at.  I also had a second attempt the next night on 9th April, which has created a lot of data images to play with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2017 by Orion
One of the photos was duplicated. The intended 5th photo is now added

[stash]

AS one who has tried many times to get "close ups" of the ISS I think you did well - nice one - ps isnt Duct tape useful 

[Tweedledee]

Those pics are amazing for the method you used. 

[Orion]

21 hours ago, stash said:

AS one who has tried many times to get "close ups" of the ISS I think you did well - nice one - ps isnt Duct tape useful 

Thanks Clive.  It was the first time with the big scope.  I'm going to try it on jets and see what newspapers the passengers are reading. With some EMA jets coming over my house, maybe it's a possibility?

12 hours ago, Tweedledee said:

Those pics are amazing for the method you used. 

Thanks Pete.  The overhead passes are supposed to be the better ones because they are closer. The low altitude ones are further away, so the ISS is smaller and fainter, needing higher ISO or slower shutter (to a limit).

[Bottletopburly]

Nice one , try video mode and edit in virtual dub , video tutorial on astronomy shed?

[Orion]

1 minute ago, Bottletopburly said:

Nice one , try video mode and edit in virtual dub , video tutorial on astronomy shed?

Thanks David.  Yes, I have planned to.  I think I caught a tiny few seconds video of that 8th April pass - after I'd done the single shots.  I've heard it's another way, but the frame quality is said to be not as a good as a single frame taken at fast shutter.  One problem is, video frames can't be stacked IF the ISS changes size of shape. But there will be brief periods of a few seconds where the ISS doesn't change. So I'm all for having a go.  Another is getting the video sensitivity correct.  I don't know how to do that - as I found when video'ing Jupiter the other night. It was as white as snow. The only thing I could do was reduce the auto brightness thing to minus 3 (from zero), which had no effect, still too bright.  But images at prime focus are normally bright. They'd be fainter with an eyepiece in place, and a bigger image.  Lots to try.

[Orion]

A few more ISS images from the 8th April 2017.  One of the images has been kindly labelled by fellow ISS imager Szabolcs Nagy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[stash]

 "I'm going to try it on jets and see what newspapers the passengers are reading. With some EMA jets coming over my house, maybe it's a possibility?" - think if I tried that during the day I might get a visit from the "white caps" or "grey coats" - my 10 inch dob does look like a large "stinger" 

 

Good luck with the Planes .

[Bottletopburly]

Nice work , szabolcs ,follow him on Flickr  he has certainly honed the art of capturing ISS ?

[Orion]

1 hour ago, stash said:

 "I'm going to try it on jets and see what newspapers the passengers are reading. With some EMA jets coming over my house, maybe it's a possibility?" - think if I tried that during the day I might get a visit from the "white caps" or "grey coats" - my 10 inch dob does look like a large "stinger" 

 

Good luck with the Planes .

 

I never thought of that.  It's ok in the back garden, but if I were to aim it at a plane and get ready to start firing the shutter, somewhere in a public area, it may arouse suspicion.  I've heard of some astronomer group getting reported for having a bazooka or similar.  Nowt happened though.

[Bottletopburly]

planes are quite easy 

 

[+Derbyshire Dave]

Derek,

 Your ISS shots are astonishing, I just can't imagine that you had the control to track in that manner. Fantastic work! Let's see how the plane shots go, might even have a go myself!

[Orion]

6 hours ago, Derbyshire Dave said:

Derek,

 Your ISS shots are astonishing, I just can't imagine that you had the control to track in that manner. Fantastic work! Let's see how the plane shots go, might even have a go myself!

 

Thank you Dave.  Do have a go.  If you've got smooth control of the reflector, and a red dot finder, and remote cable shutter release, I'm sure you'll find it easier than you imagine.  You just don't know whether you get it (because you're watching through the red dot finder), so when you go through the camera later, it can be euphoric or disappointment.

21 hours ago, Bottletopburly said:

planes are quite easy 

 

 

Wow.  So close.  I tried yesterday on a jet, with video (several times) and couldn't see the red dot, so it was a guess.  I managed to get 1-2 s video of something like the above.  Don't know what the video frames would be like though, not seen then other than on the camera screen and it goes over too quickly.

[Bottletopburly]

16 minutes ago, Orion said:

 

Thank you Dave.  Do have a go.  If you've got smooth control of the reflector, and a red dot finder, and remote cable shutter release, I'm sure you'll find it easier than you imagine.  You just don't know whether you get it (because you're watching through the red dot finder), so when you go through the camera later, it can be euphoric or disappointment.

 

Wow.  So close.  I tried yesterday on a jet, with video (several times) and couldn't see the red dot, so it was a guess.  I managed to get 1-2 s video of something like the above.  Don't know what the video frames would be like though, not seen then other than on the camera screen and it goes over too quickly.

I just looked through viewfinder for planes  trial and error 

Edited April 12, 2017 by Bottletopburly

[Orion]

David.  I had a very naive try of extracting a jet from a .MOV file with PIPP.  It revealed 9 under-exposed frames that caught the jet. I loaded those TIFFs in Registax 6 and played around with the variables.  I couldn't get alignment properly. There seems to be an overlap of ghost images, even after trying to experiment with RGB align - they seem to be already aligned, but there seems to be full faint ghost images there.  Anyway, it was an experiment. I wasn't sure I had chosen enough align points - the points chosen may have adjusted in X, but not Y perhaps.  The final image was played with in Photoshop CS2.  

 

I don't know what the jet is. But time of movie, 11/4/2017, 17:53 BST. Quite high up, so only passing Loughborough and probably not coming from or going to EMA.  I remember someone from an EMA Spotters group gave me a link to a website which had listings. But I can't remember where.

 

8.75" f5.6 reflector. Canon 1100d body.