A Glint Off The ISS

I took advantage of an 85 degree high pass of the ISS and got a picture. I can’t quite seem to beat the images I got back in 2022, I’m not sure if it’s luck of weather and seeing or if it’s something technical like needing to clean my primary mirror.

Either way I still got a great shot. I used 0.5ms exposure time and 410 gain with a 3x barlow lens. I was able to get roughly 150 frames per second, so I ended up being able to stack 10-20 images to get a final sharper shot.

I’m still thrilled with this shot, you can see the radiators and the different sections of the station, but if you don’t know what you’re looking at it’s a bit of a blob. My exposure seems correct, the body is nicely exposed, the radiators are a bit over, and the solar panels are a bit under. When I made an animation of the shots I got I noticed I caught a huge glint of sunlight off the Russian segment.

While the shot may not be as perfect as I was hoping for, it’s always fun to catch interesting things that you didn’t expect! See you next time ISS!