Wednesday, April 20, 2011

ISS - first look at the sky in 77 days.

It was 77 days (or nights) ago that the backyard observatory roof was open.  Last night wasn't really good for much since skies were hazy, and the moon was coming up around 10pm.  Just not a good night for the dim fuzzy stuff that I like collecting photons from.
The ISS was making a good pass, so I had to give it a try.  Took a peek at Saturn as a focusing target, and then waited for the station to appear.  Not a bad image, but I've had better.  I really need to try experimenting with different shutter/gain/gamma settings.  I'm still using my old settings of 1/500th second and about 40% gain.  That works fine for a station that isn't completed, but now it's a lot brighter, so I should go 1/1000 and maybe 60% on the gain?  Not sure.
I'll need some more clear skies to experiment, but again, we are socked in by clouds.
I'm pretty sure this is our space station, otherwise a Droid Starfighter has entered our system!
(Click any of the images for full size view)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's a space station!!!
I love it! I'm glad someone could brave the cold and snap some fine shots of the ISS as it passed over us starlight sky deprived northwesterners! YESSS!