Final Space Shuttle launch tonight - Fri 8th July 11.26pm

starfinder · Post by **starfinder** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:08 am

kensou wrote:which direction should we be looking at? and how to spot??

Hi,

Hav a looking at the following webpage for details of this Monday's pass of the ISS:

http://www.heavens-above.com/PassDetail ... 5061452662

Essentially, you would have to look out in the direction (eg NE, and eg 60 degrees above the horizon) at the stated times.

The ISS would appear to be a bright white star travelling steadily across the sky. The apparent rate of travel would be around 45 degrees in a minute.

shirox · Post by **shirox** » Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:14 am

Cool poster

Robin Lee · Post by **Robin Lee** » Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:05 pm

You can also use this Satellite Tracker at Spaceweather.com to check out the flyby of ISS and Atlantis over your sky.

http://spaceweather.com/flybys/country.php

starfinder · Post by **starfinder** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:19 pm

I watched and videoed the Int'l Space Station (with the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to it) fly over the Singapore region this evening.

It was a very bright object, reaching a maximum brightness of mag -3.4 (i.e. about the brightness of Venus).

I attempted to capture an image of it. This was my first serious attempt at it. I used my 12-year old Celestron C-5 5" SCT OTA, and mounted it on a Vixen Fork Mount (manually controlled). The imaging instrument was my newly purchased Canon EOS 60D, at Full HD video capture mode. (And may I add, it's my first DSLR upgrade since I got the Canon EOS 350D just over 6 years ago. So it's up around 5 generations, plus 1 level shift up.)

Here is one of the better frames. (The image here has been magnified about 3x with simple software.)

I think it's way overexposed. But it's not too bad for a first attempt. Some structure can be seen, and maybe one of it is the Space Shuttle!

I will try again next time. See if I can improve on it.

Post by **Airconvent** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:21 pm

Oh wow Gavin. You never fail to amaze me!
Awesome capture!
But I think it would be best to keep the aperture small and exposure faster. [smilie=cool.gif]

shirox · Post by **shirox** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:25 pm

Wow capturing something that is moving at a fast speed is no joke!
Nice!

Bergkamp_ · Post by **Bergkamp_** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 12:30 am

ya~! =)

starfinder · Post by **starfinder** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:51 pm

I imaged the Int'l Space Station again today, my 2nd attempt at imaging it, at 7:45pm.

This time I tweaked the video settings so that it won't be overexposed.

Unfortunately when the first video clip of around 20 seconds was made, I must have missed it altogether. That was when the ISS was at the highest (around 39 degress) and thus nearest.

The image below is a frame taken during a third video clip, when the ISS was lower in the sky, at around 25-30 degrees above the horizon.

I think it's much improved from the 1st attempt... will keep trying.

Here, various structure can be seen. I wonder which one is the Space Shuttle? Hmmm....