Took my first picture of ISS through Telescope.

[Yoda]

I'm pretty proud tonight; during the pass of the ISS I was finally able to take a fairly good shot through my LX90 using a Nikon D70 at prime focus.

Not bad for a rookie; pretty cool to do this from your own backyard !

 

[tblaxland]

Wow, nice work! :speakcool:

 

[Brad]

Awesome and excellent work!

 

[Zatnikitelman]

WOW! That is truly awesome! You can even see the different colors of the solar arrays.

 

[SPASE_1976]

very good
is iss visible to naked eye ?

 

[tblaxland]

very good
is iss visible to naked eye ?

As a point of light, yes, but no shape is discernible. On a good pass, it will appear brighter than Jupiter.

 

[SPASE_1976]

i've seen once a dim light moving in the sky , it could be a plane who knows
BTW one more question
Orbiter's iss is orbiting randomly or its accurate calculated

 

[djidji]

very cool so far I only took some nice iridium flares without telescope only camera on tripod. nothing fancy but first try was a succes so I was pretty happy. question for you do you get the computer to track it for you or you anticipate where its gonna be and wait for it to come in view and go click then. thanx for the reply.

 

[n72.75]

how exactely where you able to take that picture.
what equiptment where you using and how did you have it set up.

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

Most impressive! I didn't know it was possible to get a shot like that! What sort of magnification did your telescope use? Makes me want to dust off my reflector I've had packed away.

 

[tblaxland]

BTW one more question
Orbiter's iss is orbiting randomly or its accurate calculated

From memory, its orbit is pretty close to the real ones in the default scenarios as far as inclination and size goes.

David413's shuttle fleet has some mission specific scenarios that have the ISS in historically accurate orbits. It quickly becomes different from real life though because of effects that aren't simulated in Orbiter (non-spherical gravity effects are approximately simulated and the thermosphere is not simulated at all).

 

[James.Denholm]

Congrats Yoda! Good to know that it's not a hoax, like the moon landing. :lol:

That was a joke, you know.

 

[T.Neo]

Wow, that is awesome :speakcool:.

Nowdays, one cannot even look to the skies without seeing the footprint of man...

 

[Dickie]

Wow, that's awesome!

As someone who knows a lot less than he'd like about astronomy, do you need a pretty expensive set-up to be able to take pictures like that?

 

[Yoda]

It is rather simple actually; all you need is a telescope with a fair focal length ( 2000 mm or bigger), a red dot finder and a camera.

Align the red-dot finder perfect with the view through your scope and focus the scope/camera combination on the moon.

Once you determine when the ISS crosses your location (heavens-above.com) at a faily good height (preferably greater than 45 degr. inclination) go outside and wait for it to come over the horizon.

Align the red-dot finder over the moving ISS ( takes some skill) and keep tracking manually while firing away with the camera at about a ISO 800/ 1/500 shutterspeed.

You don't look through the camera ( you'll be too busy aligning the red-dot finder with the ISS as it moves along).

Last night I took about 130 images and from those about 40 were actually usefull so don't be shy in "shooting away like a mad man"

If you can extend you telescope's focal length by using a barlow or other 2x coverter you'll get even closer.

Like I said; no rocket science involved, just some patience and practise.

Thanks for all the good feedback guys !

 

[Messierhunter]

Nice job Yoda! Since you have an LX90, you might find this piece of software helpful for tracking:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/satellitetracker/
Go to the files section and get the setup file. I use this for all of my ISS tracking attempts (including my avatar pic). Of course, you'll need a laptop or a small desktop you can drag outside (yes, i'm nutz enough to have done the latter before) and it helps to have a joystick for making adjustments. I love it though.

 

[Yoda]

Thanks Messierhunter !
I've already have a laptop in the observatory for imaging so I'll give it a try when ISS passes over tomorrownight at a 80 degree inclination.

It's getting addicting for me to try and capture more detail and refine my skills.

 

[Messierhunter]

You managed to get an impressive bit of detail in your very first picture. I was never able to come close to that with hand tracking, and most of my tracked images don't come out that good. With some software help you should have no problem slapping on a barlow and getting a lot closer, but you'll need good vibration dampening for the drives (at least that's true of my classic lx200, not sure how much the 90's drives vibrate).

 

[Yoda]

I'm actually going to try and use my modified webcam tomorrow night which should give me the equivilant of about a 5mm eyepiece and record some AVI video of the pass.
I've use this Phillips webcam for a long time with planetary imaging and it does a really good job.
The tracking portion is going to be a little more tricky due to the increase in magnification.

If I get some good results i'll post them

 

[SpaceCowboy]

Very nice picture! Great job!