International Space Station 13th April 2014

[ejwwest]

Taken at prime focus of EdgeHD 925 with Canon 70D:

International Space Station by ejwwest, on Flickr

[knobby]

My jaw just hit the floor! Fantastic... Well done

[jammo]

That is fantastic, great detail 

[Bizibilder]

An excellent ISS - Well done!

[Pete Presland]

thats a great shot, how did you focus for it?

[ejwwest]

thats a great shot, how did you focus for it?

I have a Bhatinov mask so try to get a good focus on a star before hand and then point the scope to a position on the predicted path by Calsky. With an exposure of 1/2000s the motion blur is more or less gone. There's more structure visible on this shot than most of my previous attempts.

[ejwwest]

Another version not processed as much as the one above:

[Ludd]

Very nice indeed, well done for freezing it as it hurtled over.

I think DSLR may be the way to go for the ISS - I've used my 1000D in the past but tried with my QHY5L-II last night, and I really struggled, both with the tiny sensor and with getting the exposures short enough.  Most of the frames where the ISS appeared at all were completely motion-blurred and overexposed.

[ejwwest]

Very nice indeed, well done for freezing it as it hurtled over.

I think DSLR may be the way to go for the ISS - I've used my 1000D in the past but tried with my QHY5L-II last night, and I really struggled, both with the tiny sensor and with getting the exposures short enough.  Most of the frames where the ISS appeared at all were completely motion-blurred and overexposed.

I have considered trying my DFK21AU618 but the sensor is very small and the accuracy of the scope alignment too uncertain (that's ok when you have to then do fine adjustment on a bright object). The DSLR has a large enough field of view that you can count on a couple of shots having the ISS in when it's overhead (the 70D has 7 fps). I have also found shortening the exposure and upping the ISO a better tradeoff - the image won't be sharp anyway, so increasing sensor noise is better than motion blur. 

I know some have successfully managed with a video camera and then follow the ISS as it moves, manually or by computer control, and then stacked the video stream. That requires a lot of setup and patience! I may try the video function of the 70D and see how many frames have the ISS with the scope fixed.

[Ludd]

Well, that's spurred me on to have another go with the DSLR when the ISS comes over again tonight.  I must remember to set up in a part of the garden that has a clear western horizon so I can start tracking early on.  Last night I had to wait for it to appear from behind a mahoosive Leylandii tree in our neighbour's garden, by which time the ISS was going at a fair lick and I very quickly had to do a meridian flip. 

I must also remember to set up the camera so as to reduce the risk of the dreaded canon "Err 99" message!