Solar transit of the ISS

[von Tom]

A quick post for now. Here is my contribution of the ISS transitting the Sun this afternoon. Dennis' shot is excellent and mine is not as clear as his so I have added some artistic licence to the colour :).

The image is a compilation of 25 frames taken with a Canon EOS 550D shot at 30fps, 1080x1920 at prime focus of a 12" Sky-Watcher Dobsonian telescope. Unguided/untracked because my power was not working soon after I set it up.

I have added a link to a video showing the real time crossing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjJ3YY4rz6c

Cheers,

Tom

[jjjnettie]

:D :thumbsup:
Woo Hoo Tom!

[davewaldo]

Nice one Tom!

[Dennis]

Hi Tom

You managed to get more frames of the ISS and a larger section of the Sun too – a terrific shot. The animation really illustrates so well, the miniscule time frame in which to record this event.:eyepop:

Thanks again for your informative posts on these events and I am humbled by your relatively low-tech approach, setting up some 10 minutes before the event and focusing with just the rear LCD on the camera. I had set up my rig by 12 noon and used a Notebook to frame and focus. Even so, those last 10 minutes had my nerves on edge as I saw you wrestling with your DOB and hand controller as the minutes ticked away like seconds.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Derek Klepp]

Nice Tom and thanks for the Youtube link glad you got it

[Liz]

Great image Tom!!

[John Hothersall]

That's very impressive.

John.

[Quark]

Thats also a beauty Tom certainly one to frame and hang on the wall.

Very well done.
Regards
Trevor

[Shiraz]

great outcome Tom, really impressive. Regards Ray

[[1ponders]]

:thumbsup: excellent shooting Tom.

[Matt Wastell]

That is super!

I really enjoyed to video too - do not blink!!!!

[oosh]

Beautiful Tom, love it mate :)

[von Tom]

Thanks for all the comments. :)

Dennis, it turns out that my power failure was due to a faulty power cord, which is now replaced - funny how it worked the night before! I might have seemed cool and collected during my setup, collimation, focus, image test, and equipment failure but I can assure you that I would have preferred alot longer to set up if I could have (domestic chores/kids notwithstanding!). BTW I think I captured more frames of the ISS because I was 5 metres closer to the centreline ;)

Apart from the lack of time to comfortably set up I would change a few things:

- Use Custom White Balance on the 550D to ensure a nice white solar disc.
- Lower the ISO or increase the shutter speed to get a darker image - less light bleed into the ISS image and more solar detail. That said, 1/1250sec I think was adequate to freeze motion (at my resolution anyway)

Things I was tempted to do but thankfully didn't was:

-Attempt a still shot during video as I saw the ISS cross the disc (try pressing pause on my video to see if you can catch the ISS!) Dave's effort (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=77222) was massively impressive! :)

- 640x480 video crop mode at 60fps. If I tried this I would have captured a few frames at full res of the ISS but I think I preferred that I recorded the entire transit across the disc.

Calsky has proven to be quite accurate. The timing was about 20sec out or so, which resulted in the ISS not quite going through the centre of the disc. I will look forward to trying the catch the ISS some more!

Overall I am very pleased to have made the chase to catch the ISS and get the images I did. I am especially pleased to meet Dennis and see that his efforts (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=77338 have paid off whith such excellent results.
Cheers,

Tom