STS-134 and ISS in an LX200

[Messierhunter]

Not my best image of ISS by far, but I ran into a problem at the start of tracking. My software glitched and caused the main view window to go off the screen where I couldn't see it, so I couldn't adjust the focus on the fly to compensate for mirror flop. It also limited my ability to ensure that ISS was even in the field of view, but thankfully the viewfinder camera was accurate enough to get it in the main field to one extent or another for a considerable part of the pass. It's a bit blurry (again, due to uncompensated mirror flop), but you can still see the wings and if you look closely, the open payload bay doors make little "u" shapes just above them. I believe the astronauts were also spacewalking during this moment, but given the problems I ran into the image quality suffered too much to resolve them (assuming they were positioned somewhere they'd be visible anyway).

This was recorded with an 8" LX200 and modified Samsung SDC-435 camera at ~f/20. Exposure setting was 1/250th second with automatic gain control on low.

 

[Yoda]

Great Job !!!!
I'm waiting for a decent pass over my observatory in the next week or so and in the mean time have started LRGB imaging with a new CCD I bought.
Here's my first result from last night.
1x200 seconds in LRGB each and combined

 

[Messierhunter]

Oooh, nice, shiny. What kind?

 

[Yoda]

It's the ATIK Titan Monochrome ( just starting to dable into CCD imaging) eventially I want to move up to something bigger when I'm more comfortable with image processing.

 

[N_Molson]

Oh, the big Galaxy is eating the small one ?

 

[Yoda]

LOL; yeah just like Pacman

 

[Messierhunter]

Tried again this morning and now I'm kicking myself. The image would have been sharp, but I forgot to set the proper exposure setting before beginning tracking (now it kinda looks like a DG-EX docked to ISS lol). I also found that using SharpCap to draw virtual reticules on my viewfinder window is a bad idea on my old computer; it slows everything down and delivers 1 frame every 2 to 3 seconds, not nearly fast enough. If I could just get those reticules on a program as slim as AMCAP I'd be set.

 

[george7378]

All really beautiful! I'm still waiting for a pass over my location.

 

[Messierhunter]

Thanks George, I get one last chance to redeem myself this Thursday morning and then that's it for the rest of the mission for me. It's going to be a high but short pass as it comes out of shadow as it starts descending in the sky. Even the tiniest bit of orbital sunrise hitting it causes it to be easily bright enough to show up in the viewfinder, so I'm hoping I can capitalize on those first few precious seconds to acquire it before it starts to get too low. A piece of scotch tape will serve as my crosshair I think.

 

[Yoda]

I've got a 50 degree pass over my observatory tomorrowmorning at 05:30 (not great ) and thusfar I'm clouded over...............:facepalm:

 

[agentgonzo]

How do you do the tracking with the scope? Do you just get it all set up and just move it manually (with your hands) as best you can whilst looking through the viewfinder, or do you get the scope's motors to try and follow it with a controller?

 

[Yoda]

I track manually looking through a red-dot finder and keeping the ISS in the red dot center while shooting with a digital camera ( nikon D3000) through the main scope.
This has given me some really good results.

I'm tempted however to start using my CCD camera or a modified webcam however to get a bit closer to the ISS.

I've got a Friday AM pass coming up at 50 degree elevation ( not great but so be it) with clear skies expected.
We'll see what happens.

This is a example of one of my images using above technique

 

[Messierhunter]

How do you do the tracking with the scope? Do you just get it all set up and just move it manually (with your hands) as best you can whilst looking through the viewfinder, or do you get the scope's motors to try and follow it with a controller?

I track it automatically (with the motors) using Satellite Tracker:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/satellitetracker/
The program works very well, but the program does not account for atmospheric drag and even slight pointing or computer clock errors are amplified by the ridiculous angular speeds involved. You must be sure that you've done a good 2 star alignment and that your computer's clock has been set to atomic time. If you do everything properly, the program will reliably put ISS in the viewfinder, but not a high power eyepiece or small CCD. It includes several ways to correct for this though, including joystick and mouse controls to command the program to move the telescope forwards or backwards along the tracking path, as well as to the left or right.

After experimenting with several different ways of doing it, I found that for me the easiest way to do it is to use two cameras, one on the viewfinder, one in the telescope, and correct the tracking using a mouse while monitoring both cameras simultaneously. I have a meade LPI literally strapped to my stock LX200 viewfinder and a modified security camera attached to the main scope and record it with a video capture card. It still takes a little getting used to; the control axes are always relative to the direction of tracking, so left and right can mean up and down within the view.

Once I got used to it, it became trivially easy to keep ISS within the field of view at f/10 on my scope and doable (but more demanding) at f/20. On a good day, this is what ISS looks like at f/20:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/5033051806_47fd27fe75_z.jpg
It won't be that large tomorrow morning, but I am hoping it will be about that clear.

*Just an update; my final chance to attempt to track STS-134 was foiled by clouds. It was clear 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the time of the pass, naturally, so I ended up setting everything up that morning for a big letdown.