ISS lunar transit

[pluto]

Finally!! I've been wanting to photograph this for ages and last night it all came together. A transit only a couple of kms from me, an almost full moon and a clear night in Sydney.

I used my SW ED80 on EQ5 with a 2x barlow and a Canon 7D. The 7D was just shooting fine jpgs on high speed burst mode (8fps). I started shooting about 15 seconds before the predicted transit time and stopped about 15 seconds after. I got 6 frames so the transit was around 3/4 of a second.

Unfortunately the solar arrays are edge on, would have been much better had they been facing down. Also the seeing wasn't great but I'm very happy none the less. :D

Be sure to check out the full-res, full-disk comp: http://www.hughca.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/transit_comp2.jpg

[ourkind]

Awesome Hugh Well Done!!! Full disk comp is excellent!!

[batema]

10 out of 10 for that one. I can only imagine your excitement. Fantastic result. Head that one straight for APOD. Congrats in advance.

Mark

[iceman]

Fantastic! Well done!

[pluto]

Thanks everyone!
Next challenge is to get a solar transit :D

[multiweb]

That's a great catch. Looks very cool. :thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Great work Hugh and quite a brave move going for the full-res still shots, rather than the HD Movie Mode with its 1920x1080 res images.:thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[astronobob]

Well done Hugh, no room for error, so, congratts on your 1st, Looks unreal, like the station is orbiting the moon :thumbsup: Top stuff

[pluto]

Thanks Marc :)


Cheers Dennis.
I had considered doing a liveview capture but I wasn't sure where the ISS would cross and the FOV is relatively small. A standard 1080p wouldn't have had the res, I think the ISS would've just been a couple of pixels across. It was a little less brave considering the 8fps of the 7D, next time I want to use my 5DmkII and get some better quality, if fewer, images.




Thanks Bob, must admit it got the adrenalin going a bit as the moment approached :D

[Astroman]

Top effort, great capture. looks good too.

[CapturingTheNight]

Well done Hugh! Fantastic shot. I hope I can capture the same thing one day.

[gbeal]

Great capture, always a thrill when it comes together.
The beauty of the lunar crossings is that you can actually see the ISS coming and time your start and finish accordingly. Not so with solar.
Gary

[pluto]

That would have been great but this time the ISS was in shadow so it wasn't visible at all.
I guess you'd only get a visible pass coinciding with a transit when the moon is quite new or old as anywhere near full moon the ISS would be well in the shadow of the earth.
Sounds like an awesome challenge, I don't think even the great Thierry Legault has got one of those!

Thanks everyone, glad you all enjoy it :D

[pluto]

Just made a little gif of the 6 frames, bit wobbly due to the seeing though.
http://hughsblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/anim1.gif

[Dennis]

Nice - thanks for the follow up views!

Cheers

Dennis

[Osirisra]

Nice one!

[Matt Wastell]

Excellent - these passings are super!

[RB]

Great work Hugh !

[h0ughy]

great result

[ourkind]

Ohh that gif is excellent Hugh!!! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

When my mates imaged the ISS overpass they used the 7D but shooting video at a high frame rate 30 or 40 somthing, have you considered that option. I guess you don't get the wonderful full res image as you did with the compilation with the whole moon, just a thought.

[pluto]

I had thought that using the video mode would be too low res so I've just done a couple of crop/resize on that image to get an idea of what I would have got had I used a video mode.
The 7D will do up to 30fps @1080p and up to 60fps @ 720p.
The 720p is on the left, 1080p on the right.

They're not too bad but I'm glad I did full res, though it would look cool capturing 20-30 or 40-50 frames of the transit! maybe next time ;)


Thanks for the comments everyone :D