International Space Station and Endeavour video

So here's the video I promised a few days ago. This was cut down from about 3 minutes of footage taken with my Toucam Pro II webcam at prime focus of my 150mm reflector (1200mm focal length).

[video:soapbox:4f4d318f-0076-4b9f-838b-5724fa912b4a]
Video: ISS and STS118

From around 7000 frames, just a few dozen actually had the space station and the shuttle in. Attempting to move a telescope of that size accurately by hand is no small task.

The star at the beginning of the footage is Alkaid / Eta Ursae Majoris. I knew the space station would pass near to this star so this was my assurance that I would at least get some footage of the station if I was unable to point the telescope at the station. The first image in my previous post is from this section of the video.

This video has been slowed down by half compared to the original to give you at least some chance of seeing it. Brightness was set by using Jupiter and I guessed the exposure at 1/1000 of a second, which I think work fairly well, although it think the brightness could of done with being a tiny bit lower.

1 comment

Comment from: KD Martin [Visitor] · http://cagematch.dvorak.org/
A nice effort. Wish I could click on that pause button quicker.

Wouldn't it be nice to have some time on one of those cool CC scopes NASA uses to photo the STS during lift-off?

As a fellow astrophotographer (I'm a professional astronomer and instrument maker), I enjoy your site.

Wettest summer and most cloudy nights in over 50 yrs. in TX, so I didn't get much fun with the scopes this year.
17th September 2007 @ 22:30

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