ISS, Jupiter and Venus

Dave Lillis · Post by **Dave Lillis** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:02 pm

well, you'd know the planets are back in force when the webcam gets dusted down and turned on for the first time in a long while.

So I tried geting shots of Venus and Jupiter. The seeing was average and the jetstream was not good on the night, but in this country you take what you get weather wise.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7196/6934 ... d6ea_o.jpg
Io is the dot to the far left, Ganymede is the dot to the left of the planet. Unfortunately the GRS was not in view.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7206/6788 ... a48f_o.jpg
Its brightness makes it not as easy as you might think for a planet with absolutely no features on it

A few days later, encouraged on by good Iridium satellite tracking by the LX200, and reading Thierry Legault ISS imaging article in S&T, I treid getting it with the 12"LX200 in the dome. On the first few passes I just took in the view through the eyepiece and got used to compensating for slight tracking deviations, I was surprised by how clear you can see it through the eyepiece, clear as a bell, there it was with modules, solar panels, the whole lot, no bother with a widefield eyepeice.
I then tried it with the webcam, this was altogether a far more difficult task, as the FOV of the webcam is tiny, so I only got about 100 frames of the entire pass with something on it and only about 20 that werent smeared. This frame was the best of them. It was taken on the 24th Feb 2012, 7.56pm and 55 seconds. I found that stacking only made things worse. This was my first try of this, I'm hoping to someday somehow make up a proper video of the pass, if I get enough frames.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7062/6934 ... 9ce7_o.jpg

Conn Buckley · Post by **Conn Buckley** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 2:37 pm

Dave, nice work there with this collection of images. Re Jupiter image ... I see two dots to the left but nothing to the right. And interestingly the nearest dot on the left is a distinctive green/blue color (aquamarine?). What interests me is how you managed to capture two moons given the very small FOV of a webcam?
As you say, Venus sure is a very disappointing planet to image and all credit to you for this one.
Re the ISS .... it certainly is astonishing that you captured so much detail.....is it just the scope's tracking or are you using some sort of software to track the ISS?
I look forward to your video .... perhaps as the ISS crosses the Moon?

Dave Lillis · Post by **Dave Lillis** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:32 pm

sorry Conn, a typo on my behalf regarding the Jovian moons, the camera FOV is able to capture them but I had to brighten them in photoshop using the levels, so their colours are not indicitrive of what they really are, I guess I could have changed Io's colour balance, cos if anything it should be reddish.
yea, Venus is always a non feature kinda place, I guess the challenge is to get as sharp an edge as possible and thats by far not the sharpest edge I've ever cought of that planet.
now, the ISS image blew me away, I didn't think it would come out so well. the detail through the eyepiece was far more then you see in the image,
I was using a program called "satellite tracker" and used starrynight to monitor the telescopes position via both serial ports, both programs were using the same satellite file, downloaded automatically by starrynight, very handy. I fitted a joystick to the pc to adjust for deviations in the ISS position in the eyepeice, an absolute necessity tbh.

"satellite tracker" is freeware and can be found at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sate ... ker/files/
you'll have to join the satellitetracker yahoo group to have access to the files section so you can download it .
Do not pay for satellite tracking software, this one is thee definitive product they all work off of, you used to have to pay for it, but then the guy released it as freeware 2-3 years ago

Conn Buckley · Post by **Conn Buckley** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 7:28 pm

Dave, Thanks for the info on the ISS tracking. It sounds tricky enough and quite challenging but clearly is very rewarding. Just wondering is it possible to get any detail by tracking any other satellites? I imagine their orbits are too far out.

Dave Lillis · Post by **Dave Lillis** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 9:39 am

Way too far out Conn and they're very small compared to the ISS.
I've tracked many iridiums, you can see their brightness going up and down as they spin, but no detail, worth doing though. Tracking russian cosmos satellites is also easy as theyre relatively slow.
The only other one you could possibly see detail on would be the HST, but its orbit never lets it pass over this part of the world,
I wish I had tried this when the shuttle was still in service.