Cell Phone AstroPhotography

[Spherical Cow]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

What to do? Easy. Classify this paper and forbid all sequela and references to it, including the term "Kessler Syndrome."

Yes, and that 1978 paper mentions 3,800 satellites being tracked; Calsky.com and n2yo.com now track 27,000 and 19,000 respectively. What can I do? Well, I contribute regularly to the International Dark Sky Association but beyond that, this is one of thousands of world problems that I may not be able to solve right now.

[Spherical Cow]

Noticed an interesting situation- Two ISS transits visible from the same location, on the same day. The first, a little before sunrise crossing the moon, followed 8 hours later with the ISS transiting the sun from exactly the same location. Same setup as the others- small 6-inch Dobsonian reflector, no tracking, and a cellphone as the camera. Each transit lasted less than 1.2 seconds, so I took videos, then pulled the frames out and stacked them into the same image. This was on a dirt road out in the desert southeast of Tucson; if I had been able to get to the exact intersection of the two transit paths, then the path of the ISS would have exactly bisected the lunar and solar disks. The closest I could get was a couple hundred meters. Turned out well, though; a great way to spend the day (i.e., not working).

Norm

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Spherical Cow

Noticed an interesting situation- Two ISS transits visible from the same location, on the same day.

That is worthy of submission to various astronomy publications.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Spherical Cow

Noticed an interesting situation- Two ISS transits visible from the same location, on the same day. <snip> Turned out well, though; a great way to spend the day (i.e., not working).

Norm

Sweet piece of (not) work!

Keep it coming!

[Spherical Cow]

Well, I failed yet again to get images of the ISS transiting across the face of a planet using a cell phone and small scope. Another near miss (like Post #36 and #39), this time of Mars. But, got a nice scenic image with just a single 30-second exposure using a normal camera on a tripod, so this is the naked eye view. Mars is the bright point in the streak of the ISS. This was Sunday night, just before the lunar eclipse started, and the rising full moon provided nice illumination of the foreground, which in this case is a giant saguaro cactus, native to this area. It was a very nice evening, despite the failure- My quest continues!

Norm