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ISS Pass 07-07-07
Earlier this evening I made my second attempt to photograph the ISS through my telescope. And I was lucky enough to grab a few frames of the space station as it passed overhead. It was at maximum altitude (74°) at 6:15pm EST time. At that point the ISS was about 360km away from my position.
My images came out a bit over exposed. I'm not too worried though as this is only my first set of images I have captured. I was worried the station would be too dim so I didn't set the exposure down. I'll remember to fix that for the next pass.
I used my 10 f5 Newtonian on my dobsonian base and hand tracked the space station by keeping it in the center of my 8x50 finder-scope. I really need to get a telrad or a right angle finder because my back didn't like the position you have to be in - especially when the station crossed the zenith. To capture I used my panasonic video camera afocally held to my 26mm eyepiece with about 5X optical zoom. The magnification was about 250X.
Does anyone have any tips or hints for the next pass? I'm looking forward to giving it another go. Unfortunately I have to wait until September 3rd for another good pass. Also, does anyone know of anywhere I can find a computer model of the ISS that I can twist/rotate so I can identify the different modules/compartments of the station?
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