Andreas Hauf, Anirudh Thakar, Antonio Vilchez, Blake Trujillo, Brett Gottula, Bükk Astronomical Observatory, Charline Giroud, Christian Fröschlin, Christopher Becke, Csaba Torma, Dana Weisbrot, David Hash, Dr. Alexandros FrantzisEthan Roberts, Gábor Sági, Grant Petersen, Istvan Csabai, Jason De Freitas, Josef Huber-Klaus Nagel-Tobias Lindemann, Josh Palmer, Kunitoshi Shimizu, Martin Lewis, Maurizio Mollinari, Maxim Khisamutdinov, Michael Tzukran, Mohammad Hossein Sanaeipour, Olivér Nagy, Péter Agárdi, Philip Smith, Ralf  Vandebergh, Rich Addis, Róbert Attila Horváth Hozé, Sage Gray, Tom Gwilym, Tom Williams, Tomo, Vishal Sharma

(click on names above to jump)

 

How to Submit your photo?

If you think you have captured something incredible and International Space Station related, please send it to the following email address: metrolinaszabi@gmail.com

Please make sure your post contains the following:
– time/date the photo/animation was taken (UT)
– equipment
– flyby details (max. elevation, from – to times, brightness – these are optional details, not compulsory though but welcomed)
– write in brief story (if possible, not compulsory though)

 

Andreas Hauf

(Andreas’s Instagram profile – automated tracking with capable mount )

 

Anirudh Thakar

(Anirudh’s Twitter and Instagram profiles)

Antonio Vilchez

(His twitter, astrobin and facebook profiles)

International Space Station – 2016/08/14 Dobson Orion XT12i ZWO120MC 2.25X

International Space Station – 2016/07/29 Dobson Orion XT12i ZWO120MC 2.25X

ISS 2018 09 23 1910UT APM ED-APO 152 f/7.9 @f16 zwo183mm Green filter

 

An animation with a good result of my new tracking system using the control of an Xbox one.
Equipment: Takahashi TSA 120, Celestron CGX – controlled with Xbox One gamepad, TeleVue barlow 2x – ZWO 178 MC

 

Blake Trujillo

(Blake’s Instagram profile)

Images were captured via manual tracking from my backyard in Saginaw, Michigan.     Date: 26.08.2021
Equipment: Apertura AD8 Dobsonian, ZWO ASI462MC, Apertura 2X barlow, Svbony IR/UV Cut filter.

 

Brett & Justin Gottula

(Brett’s Twitter profile)

ISS with Crew Dragon Endeavour

Location: San Jose, CA    Date: 2021-07-13 UT: 05:26   Equipment: Celestron EdgeHD 11, Losmandy G11, ZWO ASI178MM with long-pass filter at prime focus
Special software for tracking. For full pass video click here.

Story:

This was one of those rare and special 89-degree elevation passes, fully illuminated horizon to horizon. I traveled to San Jose to avoid expected clouds close to where I live. To align the mount I ran custom software I’ve written over the past ~5 years which fully automates the process using only GPS and a guidescope camera. Besides speeding up the setup process this gives me the flexibility to aim the polar axis of the mount anywhere on the sky, which I use strategically to allow me to track the entire pass without a meridian flip in the middle even though I’m using an equatorial mount. To track the pass I ran software I’ve written which uses sensor fusion to combine predicted position from a TLE file and computer vision target identification in the guidescope camera. The only thing I had to do manually during the pass was control the gain of the camera while watching the histogram. Camera was set for 1ms exposure time, 3096×2080 resolution at ~60 FPS, 8-bit mode. For post-processing I used Rolf Hempel’s excellent PlanetarySystemStacker along with ffmpeg and some of my own Python/Numpy to do cropping and stabilization. The software development used here has been a collaboration between myself and my brother Justin who is an expert at reverse-engineering and working with buggy hardware drivers.

 

Location: San Jose, CA    Date: 2021-07-13 UT: 05:26   Equipment: Celestron EdgeHD 11, Losmandy G11, ZWO ASI178MM with long-pass filter at prime focus
Special software for tracking. For full pass video click here.
This was another near direct overhead pass from the San Francisco peninsula, peaking at 87 degrees altitude. Seeing was better than is typical in this area and the amount of detail visible in the processed frames is the best I’ve managed so far. As you noted this was just a couple days after the Nauka module docked and it is clearly visible near the right side if I’m not mistaken.

 

 

Bükk Astronomical Observatory

(Bükk Observatory’s website)

From the Bükk Astronomical Observatory this is about my 5th attempt to capture the ISS, this time with success. The 10Micron mechanics are capable of tracking the ISS if all settings are very accurate, but I had to find it first with a 100/900 telescope and then keep it in the field of view with minor manual corrections during the tracking. I simultaneously controlled the precise tracking with the hand controller, rotated the dome, and adjusted the gain beside a shutter speed of 1 ms.

The picture is the stacked best 20 of 200 frames at the time the ISS was about 470 km away. I am satisfied with the result and it gives me further motivation to take more images with this scope in the future.

Date/time: 2024.07.08. 21:02-06 UTC
Location: Répáshuta, Hungary
Equipment:
Scope: CKD 24 (610/3974 mm)
Mount: 10Micron GM4000 HPS
Camera: ZWO ASI 662 MC + ZWO UV/IR filter

 

 

Charline Giroud

(Charline’s Facebook profile)

June 24: ISS pass at 06:46 (UTC+1) at 82°, 2 hours after the sunrise, the Sun was at 7° above the horizon

June 25: ISS pass at 7:35 (UTC+1), at 87°, the Sun was at 26° above the horizon

June 28: ISS pass at 05:10 (UTC+1) at 81°, the Sun was at 2° above the horizon

June 29: ISS pass at 6:00 (UTC+1), 88°, the Sun was at 8° above the horizon

In May 2022, I had the opportunity to image the Boeing Starliner passing above Oxford at 84° while it was performing a docking maneuver less than 100 meters from the ISS. In June 2024, the Boeing Starliner was launched as a crewed mission for the first time with two NASA astronauts onboard and docked on the top of the Station on the PMA2 on the Harmony module. The planned 8 day mission was extended due to a malfunction of the Starliner thrusters and a helium leak and it’s still docked on the Station while I’m writing this description on July 6.
The ISS picture shown here was taken in broad daylight using a colour camera. Capturing the ISS in daytime has been my obsession lately but my localisation makes it possible only in summer. At Oxford’s latitude, 51.7°, the ISS can’t be seen in the northern part of the sky but only at the zenith or in the southern direction. This makes daytime tracking very tricky because the sun is usually in the southern direction and makes the ISS backlit. However, around the summer solstice, the sun rises in the northeast, creating a good configuration to illuminate the station and make it visible for tracking.

June 25: ISS pass at 7:35 (UTC+1), at 87°, the Sun was at 26° above the horizon.
Equipment: Setup: CPC800, 2x barlow, UV/IRcut filter, ASI662MC, SkyTrack, SharpCap

 

Christian Fröschlin

(Christian’s Twitter profile)

 

Christopher Becke

(Christopher’s Twitter profile)

Csaba Torma

(Csaba’s Facebook profile)

International Space Station with the HTV-9 cargo spacecraft Date: 30.05.2020 Location: Arad, Romania Equipment: SkyWatcher 200/1200 newtonian telescope, Zwo Asi 224 camera

 

International Space Station flyby from Arad, Romania    Date: 28.05.2020

 

Dana Weisbrot

(Dana’s Facebook profile)

 

David Hash

(David’s Twitter profile)

 

Dr. Alexandros Frantzis

(Alexandros’ Flickr page)

 

Ethan Roberts

(Ethan’s Instagram profile)

 

Gábor Sági

(Gábor’s Twitter profile)

International Space Station on a single frame. I captured ~3K frames on 27th January 2022, but only 1 was good enoughfor further process. Definitely my best single frame picture yet.
Equipment: 14″ Dob 2x ED barlow, Zwo ASI174MM camera with A.P 642 IR Pass filter.

 

 

Grant Petersen

(Grant’s Twitter profile)

 

Istvan Csabai

 

Jason De Freitas

(Visit the Jason’s website)

Jason wrote me for the first time the other day. He mentioned to me one his capture and sent it over via email. He is doing something I didn’t assume anyone doing these days – took photos of the ISS whilst it flew past in front of Moon. Film photography! Very interesting and I decided to share his amazingly unique capture with you. Contact either me or Jason if you happened to do ISS photography on film.

“It’s likely not remarkable to anyone without an interest in film but I’ve been trying to find an example of it ever done before. I was quite shocked that I couldn’t find any even from the early 2000’s. I figured if anyone would know of one, it might be you! I would love to know your opinion. Do you know of an ISS transit captured with film?”

Details about this shot
This is a composite of 13 individual exposures.
Taken on New Year’s Day, 2023 from Newcastle, NSW, Australia. First exposure began at approximately 22:29:55 (GMT+11) shooting at 8fps.
Camera: Nikon F5
Film: Kodak Tmax P3200
Scope: EdgeHD 8″

Josef Huber, Klaus Nagel, Tobias Lindemann

(Visit the gentlemen’s website)

Josh Palmer

(Josh’s facebook profile)

 

 

Kunitoshi Shimizu

(Kunitoshi’s facebook profile)

Date/Time : 2020/8/26 18:54 (UT)   Location : Nagano Japan    Equipment: 12″ Newtonian (F4), x5 barlow,  Takahashi JP equator,   ZWO ASI385MC, 1msec, gain 280, 60fps, 136frames stacked, custom made satellite tracking software

Flyby detail : elevation 69.5 deg, mag -3.1, range 446Km     Other: seeing was not so good and a little bit cloudy

2020/5/17 10:50 UTC, 8″ newtonian(F6), x1.3 corrector, x3 barrow,  ASI385MC (1msec gain 290), 500frames, AS!3, registax 6

 

 

Martin Lewis

(Martin’s website profile)

 

 

 

Maurizio Mollinari

(Maurizio’s facebook profiles)

30 June 2022, 4:10AM, Rome, Italy
Newton optics 354mm dia, F4.5, EQ8-R mount
X 2 Barlow., Red filter, QHY 163m camera, Sharpcap software, 1ms exposure x 300 frames, Skywatcher satellite track app

 

Maxim Khisamutdinov

(Maxim’s astrobin and facebook profiles)

New ISS solar battery

The three most successful frames from 01.07.2021, I tried to carefully process and arrange. Taken at dawn, pixel scale 0.12″ / pixel. Taganrog city center. ISS 01_07_2021 03: 48:09, height ~81 degrees, brightness -3.7, distance at the climax 430 km, shining 3/5, transparency 5/5. (1-bad, 5-excellent), calm, no humidity. Monty eq8 evilmode v3, Celestron C14 XLT + Focuser GSO 2” 1.25 x NPZ (focal length ~5 meters) + asi290mm + zwo EFW mini + Baader LRGB(R). 160fps 720×512, mono12, gain ~252-300, shutter speed 0.7 ms. Compilation of the three best frames of the span (cutting into 280 frames, 70% frames and wavelets AS!3) size 130%

 

New ISS solar battery
Probably one of the first amateur photos of the new solar battery, which was installed 10 days ago. Taken at dawn, pixel scale 0.12″ / pixel. 23 frames of animation. ISS 01.07.2021 03: 48:09, height ~81 degrees, brightness -3.7, distance at the climax 430 km, shining 3/5, transparency 5/5. (1-bad, 5-excellent), calm, no humidity. Monty eq8 evilmode v3, Celestron C14 XLT + Focuser GSO 2” 1.25 x NPZ (focal length ~5 meters) + asi290mm + zwo EFW mini + Baader LRGB(R). 160fps 720×512, mono12, gain ~252-300, shutter speed 0.7 ms. Adding 80% of 280 adjacent frames without selection in AS!3 with wavelets, AI4 retouching. 100%.
May ISS 2021
ISS 03.05.2021  03:00:30,  height ~70 deg, brightness -3.8, distance at the climax 450 km, siing 3/5, transparency 4/5. (1-bad, 5-excellent), wind 1-2ms, high humidity. Taganrog city center. Monty EQ8 evilmode v2, self-made brains for high-precision tracking of fast objects, self-written software for tracking with the help of zwo cameras, tracking in the optical channel of the guide telescope 60/240 + asi120mm, TLE of the satellite is not used.

Celestron C14 XLT Telescope + GSO 2” focuser (direct focus, focal length ~4 meters) + asi290mm + zwo EFW mini + Baader LRGB (R). 220fps 600×400, mono12, gain ~240, shutter speed 0.7 ms. Set of the best frames of the span (3 frames, slicing 280 frames, adding 20% of frames and wavelets), size 150%)

 

May ISS 2021
ISS 03.05.2021   03:00:30    SER, height ~70 deg, brightness -3.8, distance at the climax 450 km, siing 3/5, transparency 4/5. (1-bad, 5-excellent), wind 1-2ms, high humidity. Taganrog city center. Monty EQ8 evilmode v2, self-made brains for high-precision tracking of fast objects, self-written software for tracking with the help of zwo cameras, tracking in the optical channel of the guide telescope 60/240 + asi120mm, TLE of the satellite is not used.

Celestron C14 XLT Telescope + GSO 2” focuser (direct focus, focal length ~4 meters) + asi290mm + zwo EFW mini + Baader LRGB (R). 220fps 600×400, mono12, gain ~240, shutter speed 0.7 ms. Animation of the span (21 frames, slicing 280 frames, adding 20% of frames and wavelets)!3 PPP -> gif, size 100%)

 

ISS animation 21.05.2021 23:16:18, maximum height 52 degrees, brightness -3.0, distance at the climax 529 km, siing 4/5, transparency 5/5. (1-bad, 5-excellent), calm, high humidity. Monty EQ8 evilmode v2. Celestron C14 XLT + Focuser GSO 2” 1.25 x NPZ (Focal length ~5meters) + asi290mm + zwo EFW mini + Baader LRGB(R). 160fps 720×512, mono12, gain 250, shutter speed 0.9 ms. Addition of 30% of 280 frames per AS!3 with wavelets, size 100%. Animation of 60 frames.

 

Michael Tzukran

(Michael’s Instagram and Twitter profiles )

The video was capture from Israel with a 10 micron 2000 hps ii and a c14 hd, camera 290mm Zwo with a longpass 610nm filter.

Date: 18/11/2020    Time: 17:30 – 17:36

International Space Station with Resilience Crew Dragon spacecraft
Elevation: 73º
gear: c14 +gm2000 hps upgrated + barlow +extender +174mm asi
date: 19/12/2020    hour: 05:48       location: israel – tel aviv university

Equipment: Upgraded C14 with Zwo174mm cool + GM2000 for upgraded + longpass filter   Max. elevation: 79 deg pass, mag -3.8   Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel   Date: 08.01.2021

Mount fork double-arm – 16 inch – zwo 174mm – yellow filter.  Custom university software for calibration and guiding. Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel   Date: 15.05.2021

Mount fork double-arm – 16 inch – zwo 174mm – yellow filter.  Custom university software for calibration and guiding. Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel   Date: 03.06.2021

My equipment: custom fork mount on 16 sct” camera 174mm. Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel   Date: 14.09.2021

 

Mohammad Hossein Sanaeipour

(Mohammad’s Instagram profile )

Location: IRAN, Razavi khorasan, Syyedabad khoshabDate: 13/09/2023 UT: 15:41
(19:11 Local time)
Equipment: Skywatcher 150/750, 4.5 mm tmb eyepiece, 3d printed mobile adapter, Samsung galaxy A52 (as camera sensor), handmade dobsonian mount
Flyby details: Distance: 420 km, Altitude: 90°, magnitude: -4.00
The most important thing to know about this photo, is that the camera used to capture is not a regular planetary sensor or even a DSLR. Rather, it is the camera of a mid-range mobile phone!
This method is called “Afocal photography”
This pass was very unique for my location. Due to the maximum altitude of 90°, Which makes the distance between the station and the observer the least possible value.
To capture this image, I attached the mobile phone to the telescope’s eyepiece. Then I tried to focus with a bright star and set the right exposure time and ISO for the video frames. After a few minutes, ISS rised up. I started to manually track it. Fortunately, when it’s altitude was between 80° and 90°, I could keep it in the screen for about 2 seconds. That 2 seconds was the best part of my 3 minute video.
The next step was processing. I used pipp to get the frames wich included the ISS. Then I chose 100 frames for stacking. Out of those 100 frames, 15 of the best ones were stacked in autostakkert!3. And finally sharpened in registax6.
It is quite Interesting that 2 out of the 4 pairs of main solar arrays are not visible in this image. This is because they were not reflecting sunlight towards me.

 

Olivér Nagy

(Olivér’s Flickr profile )

 

Péter Agárdi

Péter sent me these amazing shot of ISS (first one is my favourite). These are his words:

It was more than ten years ago I got into astrophotography, but with many of my hobbies, they come and go from time to time. I still have the same telescope I bought in around 2004 which is a Skywatcher 114/900 on an EQ2 mount.

First off one of my more advanced setup I got a very old digital camera a Casio QV3500 for the repurpose to astrophotography meaning removing all the lenses to get it into direct focus. I chose this model because I knew it has full manual modes to shoot with (not just the auto crap that was used around that time) AND the thread to put teleconverters or such. This comes into play later.

This is my last useful attempt so far.
With this setup (Skywatcher 114/900 + Canon 600D) I use the following parameters:

Shooting FullHD cropped (using only the FullHD sized area of the sensor) video with ISO 800 and around 1/1000 shutter speed. White balance set to Sunlight. No filters or barlow used.

 

Philip Smith

(Philip’s Facebook profile, Youtube channel – automated tracking with capable mount )

The SpaceX Dragon CRS-20 cargo spacecraft was captured with the International Space Station’s robotic Canadarm2 by NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, with Andrew Morgan of NASA acting as a backup, on 9 March 2020 at 10:25 UTC (06:25 EDT). The CRS-20 Dragon spacecraft was launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 7 March 2020 at 04:50 UTC (6 March, at 23:50 EST).
I imaged the SpaceX Dragon CRS-20 cargo spacecraft from my back Manorville NY, USA backyard. The telescope was an Edge HD 14″ with an Astrodon Red filter on a ZWO ASI174 mono camera and 1.6 barlow lens. The ISS and SpaceX Dragon CRS-20 passed time was at 6:47am EST at Max Pass 84°. The sky clear 20 minutes before imaging. Then it happened…. Fast moving low fog like clouds covered the sky at the time of the ISS Pass. The ISS brightness was at -3.9 and the Sun was at -15.3° below the horizon. Funny think happened. I could see the ISS in the clouds. The clouds made for a diffuse light like filter on the ISS. I had a little GOD help I would like to think.

I made this animation of ISS I imaged on 02-04-21. I wanted to share with you the S1-3 radiator damage I recorded that day. The S1-3 radiator has a damaged cooling panel that you can see in the NASA sample and in my image. I thought I would try to overlay the NASA sample into my image to also show you show the S1-3 radiator can swivel to help keep the ISS cool. The S1-3 radiator may require on-orbit repair or replacement, as the damage may have the potential to create aleakin the External Thermal Control System (ETCS) of the station, possibly leading to unacceptable loss of the ammonia coolant. The seeing and the ISS position in the sunlight the day made it possible to image it. For that I am very happy.

 

Solar Flares off Large Solar Arrays and ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSA) I imaged on 07-16-21. My imaging configuration was an Edge HD 14 ′′ telescope with an Red Filter 1.25″ on a ZWO ASI174MM (mono) camera at full sensor 1936 x 1216 and 2x Barlow Lens all on an EQ-G mount custom inside and out. With ISS tracking hardware and software system made for me by Emmanuel Rietsch. For more info > ZWO Astrophotographer’s Story: Philip Smith

 

 

Ralf  Vandebergh

(Ralf’s website, also his Twitter profile)

Rich Addis

(Rich’s Instagram profile)

 

Róbert Attila Horváth Hozé

(Róbert’s website profile)

 

Sage Gray

(Sage’s website, also his instagram profile)

Tom Gwilym

(Tom’s older website and his current website)

All photos were taken mostly with high overhead passes of at least 50+ degrees above horizon to the zenith toward the southern sky. Hand guiding a fork/wedge mounted scope to the northern was just not practical when polar aligned in my observatory.
Photos taken from Renton, WA – just to the SE of downtown Seattle.
Camera: Vesta Pro webcam
Gain: about 45 to 50%
Brightness: 50%
Shutter speed: 1/500 second
Software (at the time!) I was using K3CCDTools to capture video.
AVI2BMP – used to sort the frames and save the good pictures as a .bmp file

 

 

Tom Williams

(Tom’s  twitter page)

First time using the Sky-Watcher Sat-Tracker. The #ISS in all it’s glory last night. Two passes, 44° & 75°.
Skywatcher 400P (16” goto Dob), celestron x-cel 2x Barlow & baader RG610 longpass. Player-One Uranus-C (IMX585) at 3600mm f/8.8.
SW Sat tracker, Firecapture, PIPP, AS!3, Registax, PS

 

Tomo

(Tomo’s  twitter page)

Equipment information: Takahashi Mewlon-250 250mm F12 + Tele Vue Powermate 2x, Location: Ama city, Aichi, JAPAN, Time: 2021.10.07 9:12:39(GMT), Max elevation: 66deg.(459km), Mag.: -3.8, Sun altitude: -9.8deg.

 

Vishal Sharma

(Vishal’s  website)

International Space Station – 06-05-2021
Time: 19:45 PM Indian Standard Time Location: Greater Noida Extension, Uttar Pradesh, India
Gear: Celestron 5″ Maksutov, iOptron MiniTower (operated manually), ZWO ASI120MC-S, ZWO IR/UV Cut Filter.
Exif details: Exposure 0.96ms, Gain 71