MF72

Atheism, Skepticism, Photography, Rocketry and general Geekism

Filed under: astronomy

ISS pass photos and animated GIF

The ISS passed overhead tonight at around 20:35 CET. Clear skies, so I tried to take some pictures.
Here are the rough images, I hope to improve them over time. Shot with D700 on tripod with 24-120mm F3.5-5.6 AF-S VR lens and 3 second exposure on ISO3200 for each image. Lots of light pollution. Orion is clearly visible in the bottom of the image. Note to self: next time, use lower ISO.

And here is a composite of the above images:

Iss_combinatie

And a smaller animated GIF, please click to see the animation (loading can take a bit of time, it's 1.4MB):

Iss_ani

Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) is closing in..

via science.nasa.gov

I love astronomy, and have a big 250mm Dobson telescope. However, I'm very picky and usually won't go out unless something special is about to happen. I'm one of those people who rarely watch something else than comets. Well, February is a good comet month (actually the past month has been too), with comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) getting brighter and more beautiful each day.. eh night.

Check out the NASA site above for more info including a link to the discoverer's blog and ephemeris for the comet.
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo