ISS and Space Shuttle tonight

[Celestron]

The ISS and SpaceShuttle is coming over tonight at 8:56CST Time . Post your picts here if you get any ! Good Luck !!

[Celestron]

Ok , me and the wife saw it and it did get very bright ! Set the camera on a tripod and took several shots from begining where it came up from the horizon to where it goes back into earths shadow . XSi , 18-55mm IS kit . Hope you like the series .
First image you can barely see it rising up from the horizon in the bottom right hand corner , second image shows it going throught the Scorpio constellation .

[Celestron]

Second set : First image it just passed Scorpio and second image it's going throught the Swan Constellation in the Summer Triangle .

[Celestron]

and next set : First image you can see Cassiopeia Constellation to the far left of the image and second image you see it going behind some clouds as it disappears back into earths shadow .

[sapearl]

I admire your patience Ron - thanks for sharing.

[Celestron]

Thanks sapearl , appreciate your comment !

[Celestron]

My pictures got posted at www.spaceweather.com with the other ISS sightings !!

[Nighthound]

Great work Ron, something I have never tried.

[Celestron]

Great work Ron, something I have never tried.

Thanks Steve ! Yes you should try this sometimes . I'd like to do so throught my 8" but would have to manually track and that maybe hard to do :cry: with my scope .

[Adrena1in]

Kind of regretting selling my 1200mm 5" now, as that was okay for getting ISS shots. I was hoping to have a 10" SCT by now, but that's not happening yet it would seem. I guess I could whack the 4x Barlow on my WO ZS70 and see what that can do, or just stick with a widefield long exposure.

I guess this is going to be one of the last times to view the Shuttle in space though, so should do it quick.

[Celestron]

Kind of regretting selling my 1200mm 5" now, as that was okay for getting ISS shots. I was hoping to have a 10" SCT by now, but that's not happening yet it would seem. I guess I could whack the 4x Barlow on my WO ZS70 and see what that can do, or just stick with a widefield long exposure.

I guess this is going to be one of the last times to view the Shuttle in space though, so should do it quick.

Yeah it undocks from the ISS today and Flies over tonight around 8:11 so if it isn't cloudy i'll be ready again . Forgot it maybe the last time for the SpaceShuttle . Really sad :cry: !

[Adrena1in]

This could be interesting. The shuttle undocks, but still flys pretty much the same path as the ISS for some time. Tomorrow the shuttle appears, followed about a minute later by the ISS, and they're visible for 3 minutes. (This is from my site.) On Friday they're 3 minutes apart, both appearing for 3 minutes, passing overhead for me. Saturday they're both visible for 5 minutes. Could make for some interesting long exposures. Two trails across the sky. Shame I've only got one camera!

[Celestron]

The 5-min ordeal would be a great chance to image throught a scope also !!

[Adrena1in]

Yep, I'm going to take my mount and little scope out to a nearby field to maximise my chances. Last time I had to wait for the ISS to appear over the roof of my house, giving me only a couple of minutes to get some shots. Fingers crossed for clear skies.

Going out in a bit with my 18-200mm to see if I can catch the ISS and Shuttle rising only a few degrees above the horizon. Don't rate my chances...even on a clear day it's still very cloudy and hazy on the horizon, so I'll probably see nothing.

[Celestron]

Look at my chances "ClearSky Clock (http://cleardarksky.com/f.php?Mn=astrophysics&p=3C1312OddMidTX)" :( :( . Almost always happens on special events . It's raining now with complete cloud cover . Good luck to anyone else .

[boondocker]

Here's one from Nova Scotia. Crappy quality but my first try at this sort of thing.
The wiggle line on the right must be from me hitting the button.

S3IS, 15" Auto ISO and i think f2.5

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2585300660098687721cEJyWw

[Celestron]

Here's one from Nova Scotia. Crappy quality but my first try at this sort of thing.
The wiggle line on the right must be from me hitting the button.

S3IS, 15" Auto ISO and i think f2.5

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2585300660098687721cEJyWw


Pretty cool anyway , too bad about the bump or whatever it was that made the wiggle . But the first part i can definitly see both the ISS and SpaceShuttle ! The Shuttle is the dim line under the ISS . WTG ! I have a small clearing but it's still daylight and doubt i will see any because of the high clouds unless it's bright enough to shine throught the clouds :( .

[Celestron]

Ok , :( , nothing , Zilch , obsolete , zero , not even a spark . It was too light on the horizon to start with and too many clouds to boot :mad: !

[Lisa]

My BIL saw it too to bad I missed it. They live in Huntsville AL

[Adrena1in]

Not a great evening for it tonight. I nearly didn't bother going out because there were a lot of clouds on the horizon. (All in the south, where the Shuttle and ISS were going to be...completely clear everywhere else!)

Couldn't decide whether to take lots of 1" exposures and stack them and/or make a video, or take long exposures. Decided on 30", ISO 100, f/5. Test shots looked about right, so I got ready, waiting for the lights to appear to my left as I faced south. Wondered what the objects were appearing to my right, then realised I was barse ackards and had my East and West mixed up! Dopey git! Anyway, four 30" shots didn't come out well because of the clouds, so turned my camera left, (east!), and took four more. Tried to layer them in PS, but the Shuttle appeared quite dim and in doing layers it all but disappeared. So this is the best of the single images. Quite like the way they're just skirting over the clouds, with Jupiter in the centre.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8904/isschasingshuttlesm.jpg

[Celestron]

Looks pretty good to me ! They were alot farther apart than previous pictures . At least you got to see them also ! I saw nothing :( .

[MintMark]

Here is my attempt from Thursday 10th... it is 12x15s exposures at 10mm f4 from a fixed tripod. At the left you can see the shuttle leaving (a faint line below the ISS trail) and then the ISS came in from the right... I was very impressed at how bright it was! The shuttle was moving a little faster too... you can tell from the length of the line segments.

I wanted to make a stack showing the entire shuttle trail too, but I'm having real problems stacking these widefield images from this lens (Canon 10-22). You can see the stars streaking in the corners... I don't think it's a deep sky stacker problem. If I export just the first and last frames and try to manually align them, they just don't line up. The centre matches but the corners don't. If I export them from DPP with lens distortion correction applied they still don't line up.

Any other ideas? Hopefully a tracking mount will solve this... at least the distortion will be in the same place in every frame!

[Celestron]

It's ok Mark , looks good anyway and very nice attempt ! Problem is the ISS travels at 14,000 mph so the Shuttle is right behind it and since they are going in the opposite direction of earths rotation your not going to be able to stack these type images . Only way is to have a EQ mount of some type tracking the stars to keep them from trailing and taking a very long exposer . BTW did you notice you have a satellite streak in the upper left hand corner ? Thats a bonus !

[Adrena1in]

Nice one Mark. I was going to try again last night, but alas it was cloudy.

Has the Shuttle landed now? I thought I heard it had, but my info. sheet tells me it's still up for another day or two. :confused:

[Celestron]

Nice one Mark. I was going to try again last night, but alas it was cloudy.

Has the Shuttle landed now? I thought I heard it had, but my info. sheet tells me it's still up for another day or two. :confused:

It landed Friday afternoon in Calif. . Spaceweather.com is suppose to issue alerts when it will come over the USA back to Flor.

[Adrena1in]

I'm glad I captured it again then, Friday I think, so almost on its approach to landing. Will post up the pics later.