ISS Crossing the Sun Animation

sheeny (Al) · #1 09-07-2010, 02:36 PM

I got an alert that the ISS would cross the disk of the sun at my place this morning, so despite the clouds I prepared the obs and had everything ticking over for the pass at 10:56:18.25s. About T-15 minutes I got a break in the clouds - enough to do a rough focus anyway, then at 10:55 the clouds cleared...

No time for a final focus... start the camera and cross fingers...

About 10:55:40 the clouds start to roll across the FOV again, but they held off enough for me to capture 13 frames with the ISS in front of the disc of the sun!

My first successful crossing capture!

I've uploaded the 10.1M animation of the pass here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/ISSPass100709.gif

If weather permits next time I get a chance at this, I'd like to capture a full disc mosaic, then capture the ISS pass at a faster shutter speed, stack and mask to reveal the captured ISS over th detailed disc. I captured at 1/60s this time which blurs the ISS... definitely need a faster shutter

.

BTW the animation is about 50% slow, as I captured at 15FPS but the animation is at 10FPS. You may also notice that the camera dropped 3 frames during the crossing...
Al.

multiweb (Marc) · #2 09-07-2010, 02:49 PM

Ah! Sooo cool!. Nice work Al.

Ric · #3 09-07-2010, 03:15 PM

That's a great capture Al

Excellent work.

Dennis · #4 09-07-2010, 04:44 PM

Hi Al

What a superbly timed, composed and captured animation! Congratulations on pulling this one off Al, and thanks for sharing the results – a simply spectacular animation and I love the image scale!

Cheers

Dennis

Quark (Trevor) · #5 09-07-2010, 05:02 PM

What a top effort Al, love it and not something you see every day.

Regards
Trevor

h0ughy (David) · #6 09-07-2010, 05:20 PM

you da man Al - fantastic result

TechnoBill · #7 09-07-2010, 05:37 PM

Well Done Al, you should be quite chuffed.

Bill D

sheeny (Al) · #8 09-07-2010, 05:58 PM

Thanks guys!

I think this is about my fourth attempt at capturing a crossing and my first solar one. Its not an easy thing to do, but the DMK41 does make it less hit and miss than using the ToUcam or DMK 21!

Al.

Kevnool (Kev) · #9 09-07-2010, 09:18 PM

Brilliant work Al
Cheers Kev.

desler · #10 09-07-2010, 09:29 PM

You must be an incredibly hard task master Al.

I think it's an absolutely sensational capture and presentation.

Darren

davewaldo · #11 09-07-2010, 09:35 PM

Great work! How did you know this event was going to happen?

RB (Andrew) · #12 09-07-2010, 10:12 PM

That's excellent Al !
Great capture.

sheeny (Al) · #13 10-07-2010, 02:36 AM

Thanks guys!

Quote:

Originally Posted by davewaldo

Great work! How did you know this event was going to happen?

I use the alert service at www.calsky.com.

Set up your location etc, and Calsky can calculate the time and location of all sorts of astro events including satellite passes and satellites crossing or near the sun and moon... and then the best bit is you can click on the little red phone icons on the web page once your set up a search and Calsky will continue to search for these phenomena and will email you when they are about to happen.

Its the next best astro web site after IIS I reckon!

Al.

sheeny (Al) · #14 10-07-2010, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desler

You must be an incredibly hard task master Al.

I think it's an absolutely sensational capture and presentation.

Darren

Thanks mate.

I don't know about being a hard task master... I've seen some fantastic shots of the ISS and the space shuttle in front of the sun in Ha (especially Thierry's) where they've managed to stop the ISS with the shutter... I guess I hoped my results would be closer to that, but in honesty I'm only using a 40mm aperture scope (with the SM40) so I'm hardly getting an excess of light to the camera

. A bigger Ha filter is required or some cunning trickery as I suggested

.

I'm hanging out for a lunar crossing event now... I haven't had one since I've had the ED80/DMK41 combination to increase my FOV. I think my previous attempts at lunar crossings failed through lack of FOV and possibly inaccurate timing.

Hmmm maybe I should try the C11 with double stacked focal reducers for a lunar event

... good FOV and good light gathering...

. I should do a test to see if the image quality would be acceptable...

Al.

Liz · #15 10-07-2010, 08:32 AM

I agree Al, a great shot.

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #16 10-07-2010, 08:49 AM

Nicely nabbed Al.

There'll be a flurry of people joining Calsky now. LOL I was one of them. Thanks for the link.

davewaldo · #17 10-07-2010, 09:35 AM

Sounds Great, Thanks Al!

TechnoBill · #18 10-07-2010, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheeny

Thanks guys!

I think this is about my fourth attempt at capturing a crossing and my first solar one. Its not an easy thing to do, but the DMK41 does make it less hit and miss than using the ToUcam or DMK 21!

Al.

Yeah I have the DMK41 also. I am currently thinking of going to a higher res astro video camera but it would also have to be sensitive. Not asking much

. But there is not that much around thats affordable. Also hard to find unless you know what you are looking for.

I even considered upgrading my canon 40 D to a 5D but that a bit pricey. I recon the HD low light video option may work well, but its an expensive investment to make without knowing.

Bill D

Spanrz (Brett) · #19 10-07-2010, 11:45 AM

Still an awesome shot. Sometimes the blurring adds to the flavour

Since I got the 500D, I've been on "Starrynight" calculating, when the ISS crosses the moon.
Sometimes it looks so close, it just misses. But in order to see it on that pass, I would have to be around 100k's of where I am now, to see the crossing.
The problem is clouds on my end. By your reports you seemed to have got all the luck at the right time

Great stuff.

iceman (Mike) · #20 10-07-2010, 12:14 PM

Very cool Al! Nice work indeed.