International Space Station - 31st August 2009

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

My first ISS captured since April, captured on the 31st August 2009. STS-128 was due to dock soon but I was under a day too early.

Unfortunately I couldn't start capturing until it had passed its maximum altitude thanks to trees in my backyard.

The first two images are shot through the branches, the last one is representative of the quality of the rest of the frames - just not sharp enough. Perhaps a faster shutter is needed (I used 1/1250s).

More here:
International Space Station - 31st August 2009

Thanks for looking.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Pretty speccy Mike.
You must have great fun/frustration capturing these images.

[Liz]

Still amazing images Mike .... hard to imagine all those people waaay up there.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I wanna be up there too.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Pretty impressive to home in on so relatively small an object, good stuff

[RB (Andrew)]

Very nice captures Mike.
I always enjoy your ISS shots.
Shame you didn't get a chance to capture the Shuttle docking too.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Brilliant!

Mike, you've probably explained before, but are these done the same way as the Moon and planetary images?

Regards,
Humayun

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Great shots Mike. I really like that last one!

Cheers,
Stephen

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Fantastic Mike,

I thought it was frustrating trying to image Jupiter at around 400x using a dob, catching the ISS must be a hundred times harder, so those pics are astounding.

Well done.

Cheers

Chris

[renormalised (Carl)]

Well done, Mike

[Dennis]

Nice work Mike – I see you haven’t lost your touch!

It’s always quite fascinating to see these ISS images recorded by amateurs from their back gardens, using off the shelf equipment. Truly remarkable results.

Cheers

Dennis

[Quark (Trevor)]

Top effort Mike, I would think it would be extremely difficult to attain correct focus for this sort of endeavor. I suppose it would be a great help if the Moon was up prior to the ISS pass to give you a decent target to adjust focus on.

I think the ISS presents one of the most difficult challenges for amateurs and I applaud your efforts.

Regards
Trevor

[Paul Haese]

Given the relative speed at which this thing moves through the sky, and that it tumbles slowly makes for a very hard target to image.

Well done on the capture.

[cookie8 (Vincent)]

The 3rd one looks very good to me!! Capturing all the solar panels. Thats something I would like to image one day.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Wow! Quite amazing. How do you follow up. Hand guiding?

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. I just want a shaper, clearer image I guess that tells the story of my planetary imaging this year.

Marc - yes, I track it by hand; moving the dob while looking through the finderscope, trying to keep the thing centered.

[hotspur (Chris)]

Mike

Thats really amazing,an outstanding effort.

I notice the gear you used was 12 inch dob,2 Times barlow with DMK

what would be the minium size apeture that could be used on ISS?

to show any detail.

I just wondered if the gear i used to get airbus flying at ten thousand

feet,would be worth having a try,4 inch may be no good.

regards Hotspur

[kinetic (Steve)]

Chris...here is a jet at probably cruise alt 25-30,000ft over my place
in a handheld DSLR connected to a 4" Schmidt Cass.
thread:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=42873

Steve

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Chris is already very handy at capturing jets.
I reckon you'd blitz it capturing the Space Station Chris.

[Kevnool (Kev)]

Great work for the time involved to track the ISS.
And the steady hand to push the scope.
I like it.
Cheers Kev.