ISS at 70 Degrees Elevation in 20 Degree Weather

In December I had a bunch of good ISS passes lined up, one even crossed in front of the moon! Unfortunately, clouds ruined them all like usual. I’m zero for four on lunar ISS transits now, some seriously bad luck.

This morning I had a perfectly clear sky, though it was bitterly cold. I focused and collimated my telescope as best I could with frozen hands. The station was going to be at 70 degrees elevation, meaning I should get a good shot, but ideally I’d like 80-ish degrees elevation for truly amazing shots.

I used my normal telescope, my 3x barlow lens, and ZWO ASI290MC camera. I have finally dialed in the ISS exposures pretty well. Station brightness was -3.6 and I chose 0.505ms shutter and 410 gain. 420 or 430 would probably have been ideal.

As usual images were stacked in autostakkert and sharpened with wavelets in registax. These images are good, but I think my focus wasn’t perfect.

Perfect focus or not I’m always happy to see the ISS!