Seeing More Detail - ISS

[mrdiki]

Howdy,

I am a complete novice with astronomy and the only piece of kit I have is a pair of Celestron 20 x 80 binos.

I often look at the ISS as it goes overhead but whether viewed with the naked eye or through my binos it appears as simply a very bright light - much like a headlamp in the sky - without showing any of the detail like the solar panels.

Is there any kind of filter I could make/adapt to get a better image or will I have to invest in some new stargazing kit?

Any and all answers appreciated and in anticipation many thanks for your consideration.

Richard

[Stu]

Hi Richard

There is a thread linked to here with discussion on viewing ISS.

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php?/topic/158374-ISS/page__view__findpost__p__1606839

My own efforts have involved a 4" refractor and 13mm ethos giving x53 magnification and a 1.9 degree field of view. I was able to manually track the ISS and see a fair amount of detail.

I think the x20 mag you are using is just too low to show any detail, I would think that x40 or above is probably needed so that really means a scope of some sort.

Hope that's of some use

Cheers

Stu

[mrdiki]

Many thanks Stu!

[MorningMajor]

I don't think there are any filters that will help, certainly not for bins. Tracking with a scope is horribly difficult - at least it wasd for me - though I did catch it briefly in my Dob as it flashed the EP but there was definitely detail there albeit it extremely brief, so you've got your work cut out but good luck!

[cantab]

For reference, the apparent size of the ISS is comparable to Jupiter. At 20x it should look non-stellar but I concur that real shape probably won't be visible.