Tiangong-1 over Sydney

[pluto (Hugh)]

I noticed that there was a reasonably good visible pass of Tiangong-1 (the Chinese space station) over Sydney tonight so I though I'd take the challenge of capturing it. This was difficult as I'm in the east and the path was from the north west which put it right over the city. It was mag 1.8 which would normally be fine but it was pretty hard to image through the light pollution, and I couldn't see it naked eye.
Anyway I ran off a few 13 sec ISO400 exposures and I managed to get Tiangong-1 in 3 of them. I then stacked them in PS.
The first image is a crop showing the Tiangong-1 trail as it was after stacking and the second image is the whole shot with a bit of "enhancement" done to bring out the trail a bit better.
I've seen and imaged the ISS before but this was a first for me, I hope you enjoy

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Cool Hugh, I knew about their Space Station just never thought of checking it out, thanks for sharing!

[Astro_Bot]

Nice capture.

The problem with a Chinese space station is that you capture it, then an hour later you just want to capture it again.


(If you don't get that old joke, then I guess you must be a fair bit younger than I am).

[pluto (Hugh)]

Thanks guys!

How terrible is that giant spotlight pointing straight up in the middle of the city

[LewisM]

I hope Synta didn't write the algorithms for the space station, 'cause if they did, we are all screwed!!!