The ISS crossed over Melbourne again, nice and high and very bright (-2.6 mag according to SkySafari). I was lucky to get a break in the clouds for the transit, unlucky because I stupidly predicted the wrong path it would take (north of the zenith, not south
), and set up the laptop table in the wrong position and missed half the transit.
In previous attempts I have both overexposed the satellite (gain 335 and 1 ms shutter speed), underexposed it (gain 200, 1.5 ms shutter), so this time I chose somewhere in the middle, 250 gain and 1.0 ms shutter. Like last time, I manhandled my C9.25" on the Evo mount and tried to get the bright white spot in the crosshairs of my 8x50 RACI finder scope with the hope that some frames of the ISS might make it onto the sensor.
These settings are also too high and I ended up overexposing the ISS again, but I managed to get a few frames where it was OK and I was able to see some detail, the best of which is shown below at captured size.
Capture details: Celestron Evolution C9.25" SCT @ f/10, ASI224MC, gain 250, shutter speed 1.0ms.