photographing iridium flares

[teleaddict]

I have just started out with using my nikon D60 and have had a couple attempts at photographing iridium flares.

Could somebody please recommend what settings to use & exposure time etc. to capture a flare

If anybody has any good tutorial sites they use,I would be glad to hear.

I would like to have a better knowledge/use of my camera for theend of the year, so I can try an capture comet ISON when it arrives.

( I can remember Halle Bopp, hanging outside my window for days, but describing it to my kids just isn't the same as saying look at this....)

thanks in advance

[ronin]

They are not easy to photograph.

You need to know fairly accurately where the peak of the flare will occur, in angular terms and altitude.

Then point the camera at this empty patch.

Attach a remote release to the camera - you cannot touch it to set the exposure off as it will shake.

Most flares last about 10-12 seconds if I recall, so set to camera to a 30 second exposure, 20 second if that seems too much.

Get a good watch and sit and wait for the satellite to drift into view - still in its dim non-flare state - you will have to be able to locate it before it flares.

Now comes the fun - when to press the button to start the exposure.

As they slowly start to gain brightness initially I suggest that when it has noticably become a bit brighter then you start the exposure - this is where 30 sec is better then 20 sec.

If you put your location into heavens above you have 2 decent flares tonight, 23:05 and 23:38, a brighter one at 00:12 - the 00:12 is nice and bright and high.

If you give the date/time link a click you get a path of the satellite through the constellations with a big "star" marking the flare position for you against the stars. This is where the camera should be pointed. I can see a problem in that if the stars do not show up in the camera screen then you are not sure where the camera is pointed.

So get out and start identifing the position, and getting an idea of the durations and finding out what the camera displays.

Settings, 200 ISO or 400 ISO, full aperture and as said 20 or 30 seconds, manual and manual focus. Longer durations mean stars will show up more but so will light pollution and after 30sec expect some trailing to occur. I have assumed camera on a bog standard camera tripod.

Will say some of the Iridium Flares I have gone out to look at simply didn't occur, and not sure how accurate the times are. Which is why I say get out and look at a few to get ideas.

You are basically taking an untracked sky shot in which a flare occurs.

[teleaddict]

thanks ronin, I went outside to have a play, but after clear blue skies and glorious sunshine since id moring, there was nothing but clouds.

I'll wait for the other 2 flares, you never know the skies may clear

[ronin]

As an example: Calsky

Down the page is a shot of an iridium flare that it says was a 22 sec exposure, I assume the original is cropped a bit.

[Psychobilly]

You can get some very good apps for Smartphones that will help you locate the position of the flare in the sky and give you an alarm sound a few seconds before it appears...

John (jgs001) made a "satcatcher mount" to allow him to point the camera at the flare locations...

Peter...

[jgs001]

Photographing flares with a wide angle lens is comparatively easy, you can just use a compass and a reasonable guess of the altitude bearing, assuming you have a reasonable prediction, such as those from Heavens Above. If you want to use a longer focal length, 50mm and up, then you need more accurate pointing... As Peter said, I made myself a little device out of bits (I think it cost me a couple of pounds, including the dirt cheap compass from Lidl, although that's caused a few issues, as it has to be perfectly flat to work properly, but that's another story).

Here's a pic... the compass here is a much more expensive one, and therefore works better, but I didn't want to permanently afix it, the Lidl one has been glued in place.

And, here's a resulting Iridium flare image shot at 50mm (I think 50mm is about right, any longer on the brighter flares, and you don't get the lead in/lead out)

[teleaddict]

thanks for your advice folks. Heres my first attempt from 9 minutes ago

[jgs001]

You got it.., nice result too.

[Russe]

Cool! I hadn't heard of this before!

Very nice!!

[teleaddict]

thanks John.

I'm just glad next door didn't look out of their bedroom window. It might have taken some explaining....