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ISS above London is back

scibuff — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:21:19 +0000

After a short stay in Amsterdam my photo equipment is back in London snapping photos of ISS fly-overs whenever the weather permits. Here’s a stacked composite of the International Space Station (ISS) pass over London at 20:30 UTC tonight.

ISS fly over London with 2 minutes worth of star trails from the "zodiac" constellation of Ophiuchus. The bright star to the right of the ISS trail is Arcturus - Canon 450D, 20x5s f/4.5 ISO 400

Click on the the photo to see more details and star trails.

Sky chart for ISS fly over London - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 20:31:57 - 20:35:56 UTC - Source: Heavens-Above.com

For more information about (visible) passes of ISS, and satellites, not only in London but for any place on Earth, visit the heavens above website. You can also follow @twisst, @abovelondon and @abovesf (if you’re in the San Francisco area) on twitter.

The ground track of ISS with its current position - The dashed part of the orbit path shows where the satellite is in the earth's shadow, and the full part is where it is sunlit - Source: Heavens-Above.com

ISS above Amsterdam

scibuff — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:13:28 +0000

Here’s my first shot of the International Space Station (ISS) passing over Amsterdam (taken at 19:00 UTC on March 07, 2010). The station passed right through the constellation Orion only a fraction of a degree north of the Orion’s belt.

ISS Above Amsterdam crossing the constellation of Orion - (4 subframes exp. 10s f/5.6 ISO 1600 each, stacked with RegiStax)

The ISS will be visible in Amsterdam until March 20 and the next visibility window will start on April 10. Below is the list of the “best” passes over the city:

Date	Mag.	Start *	End *
8 Mar	-1.9	18:52:50	18:57:43
8 Mar	-3.1	20:27:20	20:29:57
9 Mar	-2.8	19:17:15	19:22:35
9 Mar	-1.8	20:52:15	20:54:05
10 Mar	-3.3	19:42:01	19:46:38
10 Mar	-0.6	21:17:11	21:18:08
11 Mar	-3.4	20:06:53	20:10:38
11 Mar	0.2	21:42:06	21:42:08
11 Mar	-3.4	20:06:53	20:10:38
11 Mar	0.2	21:42:06	21:42:08
12 Mar	-3.2	18:56:35	19:02:21
12 Mar	-3.3	20:31:44	20:34:35
13 Mar	-3.3	19:21:23	19:27:01
13 Mar	-1.7	20:56:37	20:58:31
14 Mar	-3.2	19:46:11	19:50:56
14 Mar	-0.5	21:21:38	21:22:26
15 Mar	-2.4	20:11:00	20:14:51
16 Mar	-3.0	19:00:31	19:06:16
16 Mar	-1.3	20:35:59	20:38:46
17 Mar	-2.2	19:25:16	19:30:44
17 Mar	-0.3	21:02:20	21:02:44
18 Mar	-1.1	19:50:13	19:54:43
20 Mar	-0.9	19:04:20	19:08:45

* all times are in CET (UTC+1) and represent the moment when the station’s elevation is 10°.

Source: Heavens-Above.com

For more information about (visible) passes of ISS, and satellites, not only in Amsterdam but for any place on Earth, visit the heavens above website. You can also follow @twisst on twitter.

Waxing Crescent Moon Tonight

scibuff — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:14:18 +0000

Originally, I planned to continue my ISS above London series although now it would be renamed to ISS above Amsterdam. Unfortunately, I missed tonight’s fly over between 17:41:57 and 17:48:47 GMT when the ISS passed only a few degrees south of the Moon.

Fortunately, freezing out on the roof terrace wasn’t a complete waste of time as I managed to take the following shot of the crescent Moon [click to embiggen].

Photo of waxing crescent Moon taken tonight through a refractor ATC Monar (D=70mm f/4.6) with Canon 450D, exp. 1/50s

In the photo above, 25% of the surface is illuminated. At the time, the Moon was at the distance of 400,438 km only a few hours after reaching the apogee (January 20, 2010 at 14:55 GMT). Chromatic aberration, caused by the failure of the primary lens to focus all colors to the same point due to different refractive index for different wavelengths of light, is noticeable on the edges (green in the bottom left, red in bottom right, and blue in top right) but quite obvious in the original (uncropped) image [~2mb] with the resolution of 4272px x 2848px.

As there is no need for colors in lunar images, I was quite happy to “correct” the chromatic aberration by setting the image [click to embiggen] to gray-scale:

Grayscale photo of waxing crescent Moon taken tonight (eq and exp. details same as above)

STS-128 launch ascent flight control team video replay

scibuff — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:01:13 +0000

STS-128 launch ascent flight control team video replay:

STS-128 launch from T-9 minutes to the Main Engine Cut-off (MECO):

Detailed launch time line between T-31s and MECO is available in my launch post.

For Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-128 17A) launch photos visit my twitter feed gallery

Information about out about visible ISS and shuttle passes at your location is available from heavens-above.

The ground track of Space Shuttle Discovery with its current position - The dashed part of the orbit path shows where the orbiter is in the earth's shadow, and the full part is where it is sunlit - Source: Heavens-Above.com

ISS above London 5

scibuff — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:31 +0000

Update 1: In case you’re wondering, the bright star in the top-left is Arcturus – α Boo, the brightest star on the northern celestial hemisphere (positive declination).

As I was watching the Space Shuttle Endeavour launch NASA TV live coverage, I stepped briefly outside and took a few photos of the ISS fly-b. My tripod obviously isn’t that good with long(er) exposures so this time made a series of 2s takes as well.

Date	Mag.	Start *	End *
12 Jul	-3.4	22:27:52	22:33:44

* all times are in BST and represent the moment when the station’s elevation drops below 10°.

ISS Above London - Canon 450D, exp. 2s f/4.5 ISO 800

ISS Above London - Canon 450D, exp. 5s f/4.5 ISO 800

ISS Above London - Canon 450D, exp. 10s f/4.5 ISO 800

Sky chart for ISS fly over London - Sunday, July 22, 2009 - 21:27:59 - 21:33:52 UTC - Source: Heavens-Above.com

ISS above London 4

scibuff — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:35:25 +0000

Update 1: Thanks to @Bigyan I’ve fixed the link to the flickr set (oh man, i gotta stop using url-shortening in posts)

I just received my new Canon 450D camera in mail on Saturday so I did a bit of poking around different settings (mostly on manual) to get various photos just right. Here’s my first shot at the International Space Station (ISS) pass over London at 00:31 UTC on July 06, 2009 (adjusted for WordPress – for higher res see my flickr set)

ISS Above London (with star names and constellations) - Canon 450D, exp. 20s f/10 ISO 400

ISS Above London - Canon 450D, exp. 20s f/10 ISO 400

The ISS will be visible in London until July 25 with the next window starting on August 18. Below is the list of the “best” passes over the UK’s capital:

Date	Mag.	Start *	End *
7 Jul	-3.5	00:46:39	00:52:31
7 Jul	-3.5	02:21:53	02:27:43
7 Jul	-3.3	23:36:05	23:41:49
8 Jul	-3.4	01:11:10	01:17:02
8 Jul	-3.3	02:46:24	02:52:08
9 Jul	-3.5	00:00:28	00:06:19
9 Jul	-3.5	01:35:41	01:41:32
9 Jul	-3.3	22:49:51	22:55:36
10 Jul	-3.4	00:24:57	00:30:49
10 Jul	-3.3	02:00:11	02:05:54
10 Jul	-3.4	23:14:12	23:20:04
11 Jul	-3.5	00:49:26	00:54:10
11 Jul	-3.2	22:03:32	22:09:18
11 Jul	-3.4	23:38:39	23:44:31
12 Jul	-3.0	01:13:53	01:16:19
12 Jul	-3.4	22:27:52	22:33:44
13 Jul	-3.5	00:03:05	00:07:29
13 Jul	-3.3	22:52:17	22:58:10
14 Jul	-3.1	00:27:31	00:30:13
14 Jul	-3.3	21:41:28	21:47:21
14 Jul	-3.4	23:16:41	23:21:37
15 Jul	-3.3	22:05:51	22:11:44
15 Jul	-3.1	23:41:04	23:44:29
16 Jul	-3.4	22:30:13	22:35:58
16 Jul	-3.4	22:30:13	22:35:58
17 Jul	-3.0	22:54:34	22:58:54
18 Jul	-3.3	21:43:40	21:49:32

* all times are in BST and represent the moment when the station’s elevation drops below 10°.

Source: Heavens-Above.com

ISS above London 3

scibuff — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:56:45 +0000

The ISS made another pass over London. Once again, after almost two months, my Nokia N96 was ready to capture the event.

Currently, we are almost at the end of ca 40 day period during which the ISS is visible in London either shortly after the sunset or just before the sunrise. The last visible pass until June 22 will be on Tuesday, May 26 with maximum -0.2mag at 21:23 BST (UT+1). However, today was the last time the station reached -2.4mag until 03:57 BST on June 29. The animated sequence below shows the ISS around the time of maximum visual brightness passing through the constellations of Gemini, Cancer and Leo Minor (no stars are visible).

ISS during a pass above London on May 20, 2009

For more information about (visible) passes of ISS, and satellites, not only in London but for any place on Earth, visit heavens above website.

The ground track of ISS (orbit #60142) - The dashed part of the orbit path shows where the satellite is in the earth's shadow, and the full part is where it is sunlit - Source: Heavens-Above.com

ISS above London 2

scibuff — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:12:03 +0000

The International Space Station made another great fly over London a few hours ago (19:24 UT). At the maximum brightness (-2.4mag), the station overshone any other object in the sky. Observing conditions were slightly worse tonight than yesterday, nevertheless, the image sequence below is a little better than the composite from my last pos (ISS above London).

ISS flies above London reaching -2.4 mag. at 19:23:35UT on March 20, 2009

The ISS will make a several great appearances over London in the next few days ( 7 passed brighter than -2.0 mag in the next week). The next visible pass during which the station will reach -2.3mag, will occur tomorrow at 19:47:52 UT. Monday offers two remarkable fly-overs (starting at 18:39:41UT and 20:15:08UT) each reaching -2.3 mag. More information about the current position as well as fly-over predictions for ISS (and many other objects) are available at Heavens Above.