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ISS Sun transit

ISS transiting the Sun captured with:

Explore Scientific 102ED APO Telescope + 4x powermate and Nikon D700 on iOptron iEQ45 mount.

Focal length 2856mm, focal ratio f/28 and shutter speed 1/2000s @ ISO 320

Solar filter used (is a must to capture it): Lunt Herschel Wedge

Viewing conditions: Transparency above average, Seeing above average

 

This picture consists of 5 exposures stacked and is not cropped. It was shot with continuous shooting mode (6fps) in JPEG format.

The picture is normally white I added the orange color to see the details better and make it more pleasing to look at.

 

ISS transit details:

ISS distance (range) 541.8km, transit duration 0.71s, transit time around 10:08:08am, Sun altitude 47.0°

 

Finally after 3months I captured the ISS transiting the Sun. Mainly the bad weather in the past months delayed the capture and the fact it does not happen every week and also it need to be on a weekend (I had to work on weekdays during daylight).

Of course I’m not the first to capture it.

Thanks go to Phil McGrew for introducing to me and other photographer friends the idea of capturing the ISS transit and what tools are used for calculating such event. And Thanks to Ed Morana for writing the tool to calculate the transit.

 

AR means active region with sunspots and other activity.

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Uploaded on May 7, 2012
Taken on May 6, 2012