Complete ISS fluke.

The_bluester (Paul) · #1 13-11-2017, 11:40 AM

Setting up for a night on Saturday, Andy01 and I talked about him seeing an ISS pass from his suburban Melbourne home. Next thing, I look over his shoulder and there it was! I was planning to play at AP with my C925 D3 Nikon and .63 reducer and had mounted it all up but not turned anything on.

I madly pointed the scope to have the ISS visible in the finder scope, turned on the D3 and fired the shutter a couple of times, don't ask me about camera settings as I have no idea. Luckily I had pointed it at a star and rough focused via the viewfinder a few minutes before.

I think you could call this a case of lucky imaging.

xelasnave · #2 13-11-2017, 12:08 PM

That is great.
How exciting.
Its probably a good idea to know where it may turn up or even keeping up with generally may be "on" the night you observe... Its something I would love to have a go at...
alex

The_bluester (Paul) · #3 13-11-2017, 01:10 PM

I recall seeing an IIS facebook post that there were several transits coming up but it had slipped my mind. I meant to look it up on Heavens Above to see if there was one that night visible from my place.

It would not have been even a minute after Andy and I were talking about him seeing it the night before and there it was rising over his shoulder! I am just glad I had the mechanics of the gear set up already and could just manually point and hope.

I am kind of glad I did not look it up, I might have planned getting a shot of it and would have missed it for sure!

xelasnave · #4 13-11-2017, 03:09 PM

I know what you mean.

I picked up an iridium flare in a wide field exposure by accident which was exciting.
Alex

Saturnine (Jeff) · #5 13-11-2017, 10:55 PM

Try this website, it is based in Poland, but just put in your Long. and Lat. co-ordinates and how far you are willing to travel from home and it will give you a list of solar and lunar ISS transits visible from your area for the next 4 weeks.
http://transit-finder.com/

I have an ISS solar transit visible from home on Sunday afternoon and it's forecast to be raining, of course.

Regulus (Trevor) · #6 15-11-2017, 06:50 PM

That must be satisfying :-)

Trev

The_bluester (Paul) · #7 16-11-2017, 06:58 AM

Thanks for the link Jeff, I will have to have a look, though I will probably just wait for another good transit there rather than chasing one.

Trev, very satisfying yes, especially for something I would describe as spur of the moment.