Sky at Night

August 8th 2012. Summer ISS passes are back over UK evening skies & what a sight to kick them off. A rare clear sky evening and the 2207hrs flyby moving from the SW to E skies was a super bright event. I selected a nearby corn field which provided a great foreground composition. Lit with some remote flash bursts. Note the Iridium Flare 11 in the middle of image just above the ISS trail. It nearly intersected :-) Captured with Oly E5, 8mm fisheye. Numerous 15s exposures, F3.5 and composite stacked with StarStax software.

Sat 09th & Sun 10th June 2012. A triple flyby capture of the International Space Station (ISS). There were 4 actual flybys this evening at 2207, 2343, 0119 & 0256 hrs, however the first was clouded out. This shot shows each of the last 3 flybys in one singe composite image. This is how I captured the shot. Firstly I consulted the excellent GoSatWatch app for the exact times of each flyby. I then calculated the best direction to point the camera in order to view all 3 flybys (This was easy since the ISS more or less approached from West and finished East for all. I therefore bisected and pointed South). I set the camera (Olympus E5) on a tripod with a good wide angle lens (8mm fisheye). Set to Manual mode with an exposure time of 15s and wide open aperture at F3.5, ISO 500 I waited till the first flyby (2343hrs) and forced the camera to shoot continuously (using a remote cable). I added a few bursts of flash just before the first flyby to light up the garden and then left the camera running all night. The following morning I extracted all the images and imported those from each flyby time into stacking software (StarStax) which then produced the final composite of all 3 flybys....Simples :-) The first flyby was exceptionally bright and a shame the cloud rolled in during the second at 0119 hrs which faded the ISS trail. Nice flybys over the moon mind. Summer time offers great opportunities for multiple flyby shots like this. Just prey for clear skies now you know how :-)