ISS & Space Junk

If you want an imaging challenge then trying to image the International Space Station, or other large satelites can be very rewarding.

 

Informal Night & UFO – 21st April 2022

Thursday 21st April 2022 was an informal night at the pavilion and some members took the opportunity to do some observing with some members viewing a very rare sight indeed.

Chairman John Archer summed the evening up in his ebulletin to members dated 27th April 2022. He wrote ‘Last week we had another opportunity to get together for an observing evening and a variety of instruments were rolled out – everything from EV Scope and iPhone to Mark 1 eyeball was scanning the night sky.

Members sought out the elusive planet Mercury, and once skies darkened, other more distant objects could be seen.

A flurry of excitement and speculation surrounded the appearance of a mysterious, moving object in the night sky which turned out to be a SpaceX Falcon upper stage conducting a de-orbit burn prior to re-configuring itself into a marine reef / insurance claim – depending on where it finally landed.”

Some objects were also observed using the societies 16″ Peter Hindle telescope they were M81, M82, M44 and the Eskimo Nebula.

Below are some images from the evening taken by member Jim Burchell.

Mercury in the constellation Aries just before sunset taken using a Pentax KP 135mm F11.0, Exp 1/2sec &  ISO 800.

The Observatory taken using a Pentax KP 18mm F3.5, Exp 10sec & ISO 800.

Constellation Leo taken using  Pentax KP 48mm F7.1, Exp 2.50sec & ISO 800.

 

The next 2 images below are snapshots taken from a video that member Steve Goldson managed to capture of the UFO that four other CMHASD members witnessed too at 8.46pm.  The 1st photo shows what looks like a small cloud moving very quickly through the sky.  The 2nd photo shows the same unidentified object a few seconds later now as a bright dot with a cloud in front of it moving through the sky.

 

The members were perplexed but excited by what they had seen with most sighting it as their 1st UFO.  Later after some detective work by Honor & Sonia it was concluded that they along with Jim Burchell, David Freed and Steve Goldson had witnessed the second stage deorbit of SpaceX Falcon 9 after launching another batch of Starlink internet satellites (Starlink 4-14).

ISS pass on 25th March 2022 by Jim Burchell

On the evening of the 25th March 2022 there was a bright pass of the ISS.  Jim Burchell managed to capture 2 image’s of the ISS pass at 19.47.51- 19.52.51. Image’s taken with a pentax K70.

The 1st image shows the ISS passing the star Capella in the constellation Auriga.  F7.0  20″ 18mm iso 800.

 

The 2nd image shows the ISS passing the constellation Ursa Major – top left. F9.0 20″ 18mm iso 800.

ISS pass – 23rd March 2022

A superb composite image showing part of tonight’s bright 19.46 International Space Station (ISS) pass taken by Diane Clarke.
 
Diane said ‘This is a composite image consisting of 3 x 10 sec images.  I missed the start of the pass due to local roof lines obscuring my view but did manage to capture the 3 images that I put together to create this composite image.  The gaps are due to the self timer to reduce/remove camera shake.’
 
Diane used a Canon M50m2 Tripod Mounted Sigma 18-250mm lens @ 18mm  f4.5 10 sec @ ISO 100 to acquire the images.
 
 

International Space Station Images by Leigh Slomer

Images by Leigh Slomer

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The International Space Station. Taken on the 17th of July with a Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian Telescope and a ZWO ASI174MM

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The International Space Station. Taken on the 17th of July with a Skywatcher Skyliner 200P Dobsonian Telescope and a ZWO ASI174MM

ISS transit of the Sun

Honor recently took this video of a transit of the Sun by the ISS, something she has been attempting for 10 years.

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Image by Honor Wheeler This was taken using: Skywatcher ED80 refractor Canon 700D set in movie mode @50fps 2x Barlow EQ3 mount Date 2020.04.20 13:09UTC Transit time was 0.9 sec 16 frames extracted from the original video using PIPP and then the layers merged in Photoshop elements 6. Additional processing also done in Photoshop E6.

All images are copyright. Permission must be sought to from the image owner to the use of any of these images.