International Space Station - My Camera Apparently Has High Speed Mode!

It’s been a while since I had good weather and a nice evening space station pass, so I was excited to take the telescope out for a good 79 degree pass. That height seems to be the best to get a good photo. Any higher and it’s hard to keep a dobsonian pointed near zenith, but it’s also high enough to get a nice clear image.

While looking online to decide my camera settings I saw someone mention “High Speed Mode” on FireCapture. It turns out my camera can go faster than it has been! I was able to bump my frames per second from ~70 to ~200 by flipping that switch! That means all my planetary pictures from last summer could have been stacked even better, which is frustrating, but I’m glad I found the setting. More frames on the ISS is a game changer and would let me stack many more frames together. Usually stacking on the ISS is limited to 4-8 good frames, but last night I was able to stack 20-40 frames!

Last night the weather was a bit hazy so I bumped my camera gain to 380, but left the shutter speed at 0.505ms. As usual I collimated and focused as best as possible before the pass. Most images were good, but there was a brief period near the peak of the pass that was exceptional seeing, and gave me my best photograph of the station yet!

This short animation is 9 frames during the clearest stretch I recorded. When using 20 frames of that same period I was able to stack a beautiful image.

I love that the small radiators are visible on the left side by the solar panels. Also incredibly the new solar panels are just barely visible on the right bottom solar panel, seen as a slight angled line.

The new Russian module is already stacked on a Proton rocket and ready to launch in a few weeks. I’m excited to get one last good image before I get to see a new module being attached!