Observation by Mike Greenhill-Hooper: International Space Station with Dragon ...
Uploaded by
Mike Greenhill-Hooper
Observer
Mike Greenhill-Hooper
Observed
2024 Jan 20 - 17:50
Uploaded
2024 Jan 27 - 13:15
Objects
Spacecraft
Equipment
- Telescope: 20" f/4 Obsession Dobsonian; 3x TeleVue barlow
- ASI294MM Pro CMOS camera with Astronomik 624nm Proplanet filter
Exposure
0.7ms, gain 240
Location
Miradoux, S.W. France
Target name
ISS
Title
International Space Station with Dragon Spacecraft docked
About this image
I had the option of using my ASI224MC planetary camera, with its fast frame rate but small sensor or my deep sky camera with a larger sensor but lower frame rate. I chose the latter. This meant that although I had a better chance of catching the ISS on the sensor there would be fewer (or no) sequential frames to stack and as the ISS seems to change its orientation so quickly those closest together in the time sequence had changed sufficiently that stacking was not possible. The result was that I had to select the best individual frames to work on. So here is one example. The Dragon spacecraft is visible on the extreme left and had docked with a crew of four a few hours earlier in the day.
Files associated with this observation
Like this image
Chris Hooker,
Dr Paul Leyland,
Andy Wilson,
Callum Potter,
Graham Winstanley,
Alan Thomas,
Gary Eason,
Mike Foulkes,
Ian Jarrett,
Nick Hewitt,
Nicholas Freeman,
Bill Leatherbarrow,
Tim Haymes,
Steve Knight
Comments
That's a very nice image, Mike!
The advantage of a 20" aperture over my 10" is evident in the amount of detail. If you do succeed in tracking the station, it's possible to stack images that are within an interval of around 1 second without the change of viewing angle becoming too much of a problem. The difficulty with manual tracking is that not only does the ISS move pretty fast, but the angular speed is continually changing.
Hi Chris,
thank you for your helpful comments! Certainly agility with guiding my 20" scope while tracking the ISS manually through the Telrad is quite challenging. Camera cables risk being pulled out and backing into my portable table in the dark is a real hazard. It's rather stressful and not something I intend to tackle again for a while!
Cheers, Mike
Great image. Well worth the effort.
Alan
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