Hello everyone! Its been a very long time since I've had my gear out. Over a year as I've been studying. I've missed astronomy and this community here on IIS.
Well today I thought I'd try to get the ISS crossing the sun.
I had a mission to get setup. And it was a real debacle. I hadn't used things in so long I had to:
a) make new cardboard holders for my scope to hold the solar film.
b) reinstall windows and get software working
Well I ran out of time. I wanted to shoot video through my refractor whilst capturing stills with my 20D on the RC8. I had no cooperation from my computer so I couldn't shoot tethered which means I had to check focus by taking a shot then downloading from a card reader. Well I only managed to get set up with 10 mins to focus! DOH!
Anyways, I did a dodgy focus (basically guessed it) and when it got close to the time I shot about 200 frames. I didn't see it through the viewfinder and I thought i'd missed it.
Anyways, I took the card inside and what do you know. I got it! TWICE!
So this image is a quick stack of about 50 frames to get the background shot of the sun. Then I superimposed the space station on top in its correct positions. They aren't as sharp as I would have liked, focus was definitely out. And I think I could have done with a faster shutter speed (1/640 ISO 400). The colour gradient map was added in photoshop.
Anyways, this is the first time for me shooting the sun with this gear and trying to capture the ISS. I'm quite happy with the result.
I do have one niggling question though... I thought the ISS might appear bigger or more complex in structure... I notice in Starry night that another satellite passed on the same path about 1 second before the ISS. It was the Johannes Kepler ATV2. Have I caught this and not the ISS?
All comments welcome.
Higher Res Here:
http://i1225.photobucket.com/albums/...ISSoverSun.jpg
You definitely got it! Well done!
