[aprssig] Taking photos of sats

[Neville A. Cross]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Andrew Rich
(Home)<vk4tec at tech-software.net> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I saw the ISS and also hubble go across the night sky
>
> Anyone into photography that could give me some pointers as to how to
> capture the streaks across the sky
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Andrew Rich


There are two ways of doing this. Easy and Difficult.

Easy: You use a tripod, wide angle lens and long exposure. You
estimate the general direction where the sat will show and you shoot
for a couple of minutes. You will end up with a bright line across the
stars on the background.

Difficult: You use a motorized azimuth elevation following system that
is fast and very very stable. Use a software that follows the sat and
long exposure. If it is not an stable rotor, you will have shaking on
your photo. Astronomical rotors are not that fast to follow a sat.
Depending on the magnification of your equipment you will have a
bright dot or a bright shape and starts like lines on the background.
Not sure if you will like this outcome.

I have only see pictures of Iridium Flares, when a Iridium sat
reflects the sun on its solar array. Not sure if the ISS will be
bright enough to leave the bright trail.

Best regards

-- 
Neville
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Yn1v
Linux User # 473217