2020-04-21 - ISS Pass 6:44pm Melbourne

[turbo_pascale]

First time I've tried to get the IIS.

I got the LX200GPS 10" (at 2500mm) with a Canon 7D Mk II doing video out the back of it. Just setup in AltAz in the yard. Even if it was in the dome, I don't think the dome would necessarily have kept up!

I've attached a single frame (massive crop), and a link to 20 seconds of video which I posted on my twitter feed (you don't have to logon).

https://twitter.com/turbo_pascale/status/1252539095449874433

It was a pretty hectic 5 minutes - only managed to keep it in the FOV for about 2-3 minutes - as it came overhead I couldn't keep it tracked anymore and just lost it.

I'll do a video on YouTube eventually with all the setup background info too.

[turbo_pascale]

I've uploaded a video on how I took the International Space Station video here:

https://youtu.be/TkCMMI24bCk

Trying to image an object that's flying overhead at 25,000km/h is always going to pose some challenges.
The LX200GPS mount has a reasonably uncommon capability in terms of being able to track fast moving objects like the ISS given a set of data to describe it's path.
You can download the data from https://heavens-above.com/
Entering the data in to the handset, follow the instructions here: http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/as_iss.html
Extracting the images from the video file taken with the camera, use PIPP: https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/

[JohnL]

That's impressive tracking of something going so fast. I was hoping to get a video of that pass manually tracked with my 200mm dobsonian, but the clouds got in the way.

What exposure and ISO were you using?

[multiweb]

+1 Pretty good tracking. :thumbsup:

[rustigsmed]

great tracking effort for sure, i wonder if you could run it through PIPP to get a stable video out of it.

[turbo_pascale]

I tried - I deleted some of the blatantly crap frames that PIPP missed.

I put it in the YouTube video above - here's the link that starts at the PIPP video.

https://youtu.be/TkCMMI24bCk?t=253

[turbo_pascale]

I had the Canon 7D Mk ii on "Auto" - I recorded in Full HD at 50 fps.
I inspected the meta data on the video, but it doesn't seem to record that, other than to say "AutoISO"

Frankly, I had my hands full. I don't think I could have done much about it anyway, as the camera was just mounted on the back of the OTA and running off battery. If I had it hooked up to a laptop maybe I would have had a chance to fiddle with settings.

I really actually thought I was going to struggle with seeing it, and I thought it was going to be too dim.

It's really a multiple person job. I had enough trouble getting the focus dialled in and tracking. Adding Gain/ISO fiddling in there was never going to happen without help.