[ATMoB-discuss] Images of last night's ISS/Shuttle pass...

[Paul A. Valleli]

Great job, John.
You proved it doesn't take a 24-inch rgrade telescope to image the objects. It is very
clear that theshuttle.  Heavens-Above clearly gflight wrong, but that may have been due to the
fly-aroI am amazed that you captured the color of the solar panels.
One minor correction - the objects set in the
SouthEcloudbank.
Paul

  Date: T  From: "John Boudreau" <jebou  Subject: [ATMoB-discuss] Images of last nigh  ISS/Shuttle pass...
  To: <atmob-discuss at atmob.org>, &  lt;nsaac at nsaac.org>

  >Here's a few images from my webcam vi  last night's ISS/STS-117 pass. The top row is the
  ISS and from  ranging from about 40° altitude to   zenith. The single image of Atlantis below is from
  two frames   zenith:
  >
  >http://home  >
  >Throughout most of t  the ISS was brighter than the Shuttle. As bo  neared their maximum altitude and headed towards
  the SW, I was track  couldn't put the scope back on the ISS when it w  as at it's brightest due to interference from the
  RA motor of my G11 mo  recorded at or near max magnitude, but the ISS   was not.
  >
  >I used a TEC 140 refractor at 980mm focal lengt  h (f/7) and a Philips ToUcam 840 webcam. I hand
  guided the scope using   sight'. I simply moved the scope in jumps a bit
  ah  as each traveled through  'bulls eye'--- and (hopefully) FOV of the cam  era. With this method, orbital motion blur was
  held to a minimum by the  setting I was using.
  >
  >As for the   claim that the Shuttle was in the lead:  >My NW was pretty clear, and I had been watching
  for one of the   trees... first object I saw, I starte  and put the scope on it repeatedly (it couldn't be
  held ste  described above). As the objec  50° up, I noticed a fainter companion behind it
  and  back to the brighter lead  and forth between objects for a few times, and
  after being on the latter object for a bit again,
  went to try to center the leader once more--- but
  ran into RA motor clearance problems with m  Losmandy G11 and couldn't follow either target
  anymore. In the video,  quite a while is the ISS, then the Shuttle   appears about halfway through---- then they
  alternate appearances, fini  Shuttle. With all the hectic goings-on I was
  dealing wit  focal length *by hand* and between  can't I can't claim 100% **for sure** that I
  didn't get mixe  moments after the live event, the sequence  ISS... then Shuttle was consistent with my
  originally targeting the  the somewhat fainter trailing object. I can't se  e how I could have confused the two, but I suppose
  anything's possible.  >
  >At least they're easily identifiable on the video
  ;o)<br  >---John
  >
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