The Sun and the ISS Transit 27/1/11

[sheeny (Al)]

The ISS crossed the disc of the sun at my place this afternoon...... at 18:08 AEDT. This is a very small animated gif of the event.

The animation was exported from Virtual Dub as BMPs anf then as an animated gif when I saw that option... cropped, levels, colourised and unsharp masked, and then the animation was slowed down from 15 fps to 5 fps in PS.

Captured with the SM40, ED80 B1200, DMK 41AU02.AS rig at 1/250s and gain=680. I worked out I needed less then 1/227s exposure to stop the ISS within 1 pixel... but as you can see, it's still not sharp... I suppose there's only so much you can expect when the Raleigh criterion for the scope at 6563A is 2.4 pixels! Oh well, I think I need at least 100mm aperture at 600mm focal length to get it sharp, if my calcs are right...

I'll upload the full size but cropped animated gif soon (I have to do a bit of a computer shuffle as I don;t have FTP on my new 'puter yet).

BTW there was also an excellent looping prom crossing the limb as well so I've got shots of the disc and that to process and post too.

Al.

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Super Al!
Fantastic to see - man the ISS zooms across the Sun very quickly - great job.

[Derek Klepp]

Great shot Al glad you got the prominence too.I'll post a negative shot shortly

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks Matt.

I think there's quite a few other satellites and space junk crossing some of my videos too, but I need a bigger aperture scope to image them "clearly" without an accurate ephemeris/prediction.

Let's see if I can get the link to the 1.1MB animation right...:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads...7-18-08-41.gif

Al.

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks Derek!

Al.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

How cool is that. Fantastic Al!!! Excellent love the filamentous background

[kinetic (Steve)]

Brilliant Al!

Steve

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks guys.

Here's the full disc shot I captured about an hour before hand, and a prominence shot.

Al.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Supa Dupa Al!
Well nabbed indeed!

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks Jeanette!

Al.

[Kevnool (Kev)]

Bewdifull Al its just another pearler you present.

Cheers Kev.

[h0ughy (David)]

great arvo viewing Al

[Rob_K]

Super job Al, great capture!! Did you know that the ISS would cross the disc, or did you have a close pass prediction and take your chances?

Cheers -

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow Al, that's great! A very grazing pass but you got it! Well done!

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks guys.

Rob, I had an email alert from Calsky that the ISS would cross the disc of the sun.

I didn't realise it was going to be that close to the edge, Mike. In the cryptic way of Calsky

In a clock-face concept, the satellite will seem to move toward 9:52

and after looking at the centreline map, I ended up with a sore head trying to work out which part of the sun it would cross by the time I took into account it being upside down and backwards in the scope, then flipped in the diagonal, and having the camera rotated as I usually do for solar images... ... so I just aimed at the centre and made use of the DMK 41's FOV.

Al.

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

How impressive is that!
Wickedly good shooting, Al. Brilliant.

[Derek Klepp]

Nice disc and prominence shots hope you at least saw the one today

[sheeny (Al)]

Thanks guys.

I haven't got there yet, Derek.

Al.

[Derek Klepp]

Looks like its gone however there is a nice filament now unfortunately the weather is clouding over

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Bonza stuff.