First Space Station Shot in a While

Since getting my new planetary camera I’ve been excited to get more detail on the space station, but haven’t had many chances. The few shots I’ve taken have been slightly over exposed, so this time I thought I had a good idea of where to set it.

Tonight was an 88 degree pass, so I was excited to get a nice clear shot. Using a 2x barlow lens with my 8” dobsonian telescope and ZWO ASI290MC camera I set up in the backyard. I used 0.505ms shutter speed and 370 gain. I focused on a bright star with a bhatinov mask, and I collimated as best as I could, then I waited.

I used PIPP to find and crop the frames with the space station in them. This final image was a stack of about 5 individual frames, sharpened slightly with wavelets in Registax.

It’s not the clearest shot I’ve taken, but it’s pretty good. I’m very pleased with how apparent the radiator panels are. I’m actually thinking I may have slightly under-exposed this shot, and obviously no solar panels are visible. Next time I might try for an exposure of 380 or 385, small changes make a big difference with the ISS.

My seeing tonight was apparently not great, so the shots are somewhat blurry. When shooting the ISS it takes many things to line up perfectly: focus, collimation, a high pass, good seeing.

Here’s a time lapse of all the ISS frames.