Double Solar transit of ISS

[calli 161]

Hi,

due to the exact prediction from calsky.com I was able to get a double solar transit of the ISS. I found a nice place for observing the two transits at maybe 200m from the calculated crossing of the central pathes. Technic was working flawlessly and so I could take two videos.

Here is a video just the raw images: https://youtu.be/PFsZTPoM-ro

The combined image is not aligned so far, so the "pilot" of the ISS seems a bit drunk. Ok it was the seeing and wind gusts. I will do a better aligned version when I got some time.

Cheers,
Carsten

 

PS: Translation of the image caption:

Place: South of Berlin, west of Rangsdorfer lake
Time: 21 April 2016, first transit 14:27:31 distance to ISS 548km, second 17:39:13 distance to ISS 922km

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by calli

[baggywrinkle 2,077]

That is phenomenal!

[Debo 1,415]

Fantastic, that's really something.

[Davey-T 17,633]

Superb, well done Carsten, passes always seem to coincide with cloud here.

Dave

[Psychobilly 7,133]

Awesome!!!

 

[sooot 1,178]

two transits.....now that's just greedy. nicely captured, I'm yet to catch an iss transit

[calli 161]

I took my chance, and it worked. I can just say try it. This is really fun and also a bit challenging and exiting. JUst looked at APOD and found another double transit, better image quality but not that central and not crossing :-) Yea!

Carsten

 

PS: On mobile (Android) the image is very dark. I really wonder why this is. Did nothing special I think.., Maybe somehow the gammy did go wonky.

[laudropb 7,077]

 A really great capture. Very well done.

[calli 161]

Reprocessed in FITSwork and then GIMP. Tried to get more of the solar structure out of the image, so I processed the first transit in Median mode, eliminating the ISS. Then I processed both transits in Min mode and layered them in GIMP. Did not get the color (which is of course more "artistic expression" than real color) quite right, so I also made a gray version.

What do you think?

Best,
Carsten

[mikeskor 430]

Very impressive.

[DrRobin 3,496]

Wow, brilliant.

Robin

[Owmuchonomy 2,432]

Marvellous.  Makes my first attempt seem pretty puny!  I have no idea how I should process my video capture.  Any tips?

I got the same alert for the double transit yesterday but it was 50 miles from my location here in Ripon.

[calli 161]

You can just put the images in layers and then use the "Darken only" layer mode.

Carsten

[michael.h.f.wilkinson 20,364]

Amazing shot(s)!

 

[Owmuchonomy 2,432]

1 hour ago, calli said:

You can just put the images in layers and then use the "Darken only" layer mode.

Carsten

Carsten. you star!  It worked a treat.  I am not posting the image because it is poor in comparison to yours.  However, I can't wait for the next opportunity.  Thanks again.

[Pete Presland 11,089]

Incredible images,  worth a APOD In my opinion.  Opportunities arrive and you have made the most of yours.  

[calli 161]

@bunnygod1I am not sure how they choose an APOD but because your are not the first saying so I submitted it together with the info how it was made. Not that I really think it will be choosen but... But when. Getting famous. Getting rich. Getting GEAR. Getting food. Beeing poor again... Well ;-)

Carsten

[Pete Presland 11,089]

13 hours ago, calli said:

@bunnygod1I am not sure how they choose an APOD but because your are not the first saying so I submitted it together with the info how it was made. Not that I really think it will be choosen but... But when. Getting famous. Getting rich. Getting GEAR. Getting food. Beeing poor again... Well ;-)

Carsten

It is a excellent image and it would be great to see it on there.

[calli 161]

Just for the record and in preparation of the Merkur transit:

ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php) is a commandline image processing suite. It may be faster to do it in GIMP et.al. for some few images but for repetive tasks or a huge number of images this can help.
 

# Sequence darken only combination
convert  *.tif -resize 1200x  -evaluate-sequence min   -sharpen 0x3  result.png

#same but colorize it:
convert  *.tif -resize 1200x  -evaluate-sequence min   -sharpen 0x3  -colorspace gray -fill "rgb(200,160,0)" -t
int 100  result_color.png


#GIF animation
convert -delay 10  -resize 800 *.tif -loop 0 result.gif

Be prepared!

Carsten

[calli 161]

My image was accepted as "European Astronomy Picture Of the Day"! Yay! ;-)

 

http://eapod.eu/7-january-2017-iss-double-solar-transit/

[Davey-T 17,633]

Congrat's Carsten well deserved.

Dave

[jabeoo1 1,271]

Brilliant.  Congratulations on such a great capture, you must have been well chuffed

[Pete Presland 11,089]

Well deserved it was a fantastic image. Looking at it again, I particularly like the difference in scale of the ISS between the two passes.

[johnfosteruk 12,069]

That's brilliant Carsten, I was hoping for a Lunar transit not 150 yards from home here next Saturday but the orbit's changed and it's not going to happen now. Being coastal my nearest transits seem to often be 10 miles out at sea!!!!

[Iainp 2,738]

On 24/04/2016 at 17:36, bunnygod1 said:

worth a APOD In my opinion

My thoughts exactly! Superb result there

Iain