Space Station Directly Overhead

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This morning the space station went directly over my house, it was a 90 degree elevation pass. In fact, the space station ground track passed only a street over from my house!

I haven't seen the station in a while so I had planned this one for a while, but early morning astronomy is never easy with small kids at home. I'm going to sleep well tonight!

A 90 degree pass is a rare event, but also not quite optimal for photography. Once the station gets directly overhead I need to spin my telescope 180 degrees and find the station in my view finder again. I got the rising station well, but by the time I found it again after going overhead it was too dim and blurry to photograph. An 80 degree pass also has great viewing, but you can also track it for the full pass.

Using camera settings I was happy with from previous station attempts I used ISO-5000 and a shutter speed of 1/1600s. The Fuji XA-2 camera uses a 2x Barlow lens to achieve focus.

This morning I did the full checklist:

  • align the finder scope

  • collimate the mirrors

  • focus with bhatinov mask

  • lock the focus and REMOVE THE BHATINOV MASK

  • make sure camera timers are off and the camera is in burst mode

All images were aligned and cropped with PIPP, some stacking was some in autostakkert, and there was some wavelets sharpening in registax.

ISS1~2.png

I'm very happy with this shot. The panels are clearly visible, as are the pressurized sections. The Russian segment is on the bottom, with what looks like the Soyuz MS-15 attached at the very bottom.

This video is fun because it looks like that station is just going to keep coming, and coming, and coming until it’s in your living room.