First International Space Station for 2024 (26/01/24)

[Kon]

It has been a while since I imaged the ISS and this is the first one for 2024. Seeing was poor but still managed to pull a colour image with several modules (Space X Dragon, Soyuz and Progress). 8" Dob (200P), manual tracking, asi462mc, 2.5x TV powermate, UV/IR cut filter. 0.7ms exposure and gain 190. Of the 20000 frames only 10 images per image were usable.

[Roy Challen]

I'm always amazed at the amount of detail you capture in your ISS images. Nice one!

[FenlandPaul]

Blown away by the detail!

[happy-kat]

You've bounced in with fabulous shots

[PeterC65]

Great images. I'm planning to give the ISS a try with my 8" Newtonian and x2.4 Barlow.

How do you track the ISS? I've found it listed on Stellarium and am planning to use that, but the ISS moves pretty quickly.

 

[Alan White]

I love to watch ISS passes with my manual scopes, 
how you manage to image it and with great success is outside my present skill set.

Wonderful images and so very well done.

[PeterStudz]

33 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

How do you track the ISS? I've found it listed on Stellarium and am planning to use that, but the ISS moves pretty quickly.

 

I’d like to know some tips on this too. I’m planning on an attempt to capture it on mobile phone with my 8” Dob. I’ve done a couple of practice runs and my method so far has been to make sure my finder (RACI 9x50) is spot on, then manually push/follow it in the finder. As long as the ISS isn’t too high in the sky (pushing a Dob at high angles is always a faff) then it hasn’t been too hard to keep in near the centre of the finder.. 

Edited January 27 by PeterStudz

[Mr Spock]

Excellent detail. That's a fabulous image poor seeing or not 👍

[PeterStudz]

They are fabulous images and a great achievement. Also shows that you don’t need that much “stuff” to get good results. Well, as long as you have the skills!

[Kon]

4 hours ago, Roy Challen said:

I'm always amazed at the amount of detail you capture in your ISS images. Nice one!

Thanks Roy. Not my best but always exciting to see it.

[Kon]

3 hours ago, FenlandPaul said:

Blown away by the detail!

Thanks Paul. I wish seeing was better but a good result in the end.

[Kon]

3 hours ago, happy-kat said:

You've bounced in with fabulous shots

Thanks.

[Kon]

3 hours ago, Alan White said:

I love to watch ISS passes with my manual scopes, 
how you manage to image it and with great success is outside my present skill set.

Wonderful images and so very well done.

Thanks Alan. It's a lot faster at the eyepiece than with the finderscope. I am amazed that you can track it visually.

[Kon]

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Excellent detail. That's a fabulous image poor seeing or not 👍

Thanks. I know I can get a lot better than this under good seeing. But I am not complaining.

[Kon]

@PeterC65and @PeterStudzthanks both. I always track it on my finderscope and not looking at the laptop at all.  I align my camera to the cross hair using a star at 640x480 ROI. Aligning using an eyepiece is usually off, unless you use a mobile then it should be ok.

I never image passes below 60 degree as the atmospheric disturbance is awful. Last night it was 86 degrees so I a quick flip around is needed. I have done it enough times now to know the trajectory. I prefer to use heavensabove as you get the trajectory so if you know your sky you can work out the path.

The time given by this site is spot on: 

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

For mobile capture see here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/401141-international-space-station-with-smartphone/#comment-4299972

And

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/402474-tiangong-space-station-smartphone-telescope/#comment-4312697

 

 

 

[PeterC65]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

@PeterC65and @PeterStudzthanks both. I always track it on my finderscope and not looking at the laptop at all.  I align my camera to the cross hair using a star at 640x480 ROI. Aligning using an eyepiece is usually off, unless you use a mobile then it should be ok.

I never image passes below 60 degree as the atmospheric disturbance is awful. Last night it was 86 degrees so I a quick flip around is needed. I have done it enough times now to know the trajectory. I prefer to use heavensabove as you get the trajectory so if you know your sky you can work out the path.

It's interesting to know that you track the ISS with a finderscope, presumably slewing the scope manually to keep the ISS in the cross hairs?

I was gong to see if I could get Stellarium to move the mount quickly enough and accurately enough to track the ISS, but when I do this as a simulation it does seem to be moving rather quickly.

I usually have two scopes on the go when I do EAA, one narrow field and the other wide field. I could pair the 8" Newtonian with the FMA135, right at the other extreme, and use it to track the ISS since it has the same spec as a finderscope (it's much more than a finderscope by the way).

You mentioned in the OP that only a small fraction of the frames were usable. Is that in part because the ISS was jumping about because of the manual tracking, and so not always in the frame?

This all sounds like a very interesting EAA challenge.

 

[Kon]

2 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

It's interesting to know that you track the ISS with a finderscope, presumably slewing the scope manually to keep the ISS in the cross hairs?

I was gong to see if I could get Stellarium to move the mount quickly enough and accurately enough to track the ISS, but when I do this as a simulation it does seem to be moving rather quickly.

I usually have two scopes on the go when I do EAA, one narrow field and the other wide field. I could pair the 8" Newtonian with the FMA135, right at the other extreme, and use it to track the ISS since it has the same spec as a finderscope (it's much more than a finderscope by the way).

You mentioned in the OP that only a small fraction of the frames were usable. Is that in part because the ISS was jumping about because of the manual tracking, and so not always in the frame?

This all sounds like a very interesting EAA challenge.

 

I am manually tracking but if you have a goto you can use a satellite tracking software from skywatcher that allows the goto to track it.

My tracking rate is close to 90% frames with iss in it but the seeing was so bad that only a fraction had usable frames.