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Travelling from left to right, the docked space shuttle Atlantis together with the International Space Station (ISS) pass over Australia yesterday evening.



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Travelling from top right to bottom left, the International Space Station (ISS) [brighter trail] followed by the space shuttle Atlantis [fainter trail] sail through the starry night over Australia this evening.



Nb: The two bright stars at the bottom right are the "pointers" near the Southern Cross (Crux).

Awesome When I saw the title, I thought it was Stargate related

Hell - hadn't even thought about doing something like this! Great thinking! Do you think the space station looks brighter now with the solar panels out?

It's a pity you've cut the Southern Cross out of the one from tonight - that really would have made this shot

Finally, how come the shuttle's trail goes all the way through the shot, while the station's trail doesn't?

StarGazer Out of technical interest, can you enlighten amateurs like myself how you set up the shot, cheers for your efforts too BTW

How did you know where in the sky they would appear?

sheepie wrote:Hell - hadn't even thought about doing something like this! Great thinking! Do you think the space station looks brighter now with the solar panels out?

The brightness or magnitude that you'll see will depend on a number of things ... the angle of the reflection of sunlight, how big and "shiny" the reflecting surface is and where you are located on Earth at the time.

sheepie wrote:It's a pity you've cut the Southern Cross out of the one from tonight - that really would have made this shot

I took that shot from my back yard but unfortunately Crux itself was hidden behind a tree.

sheepie wrote:Finally, how come the shuttle's trail goes all the way through the shot, while the station's trail doesn't?

If you look closely you'll notice that the shuttle's trail ends roughly the same distance as the ISS trail begins. This just marks the point where the camera's shutter opened & closed. This was the second shot that I took during this pass. After the first shot, I had to shift the camera angle to shoot again. Unfortunately I didn't swing the camera as far as I needed to get the ISS to enter the view from outside the shot this time.

Dargan wrote:StarGazer Out of technical interest, can you enlighten amateurs like myself how you set up the shot, cheers for your efforts too BTW

I refer to the Heavens-Above website to find out when a satellite is passing over my place. Once I know the time, direction (Az.) and how high up from the horizon I need to look (Alt.) it's just a simple case of setting up the camera on a tripod, aiming it towards the area of sky that the satellite will pass through, wait for the satellite to appear (looks like a bright moving "star") and, with the camera set on bulb, start your exposure ... See? Simple!

Btw, you can also use your video camera.
Iridium Flares are fun to try and capture ... example HERE (1.6Mb video file)

lol - "we are looking for some flarey thing"

I think you ended up with a convert at the end though!

Stargazer wrote:

sheepie wrote:Finally, how come the shuttle's trail goes all the way through the shot, while the station's trail doesn't?

If you look closely you'll notice that the shuttle's trail ends roughly the same distance as the ISS trail begins. This just marks the point where the camera's shutter opened & closed. This was the second shot that I took during this pass. After the first shot, I had to shift the camera angle to shoot again. Unfortunately I didn't swing the camera as far as I needed to get the ISS to enter the view from outside the shot this time.

Got it This was after the Shuttle had left the space station A very unique time, and something that would not have been so obvious if you had both of the trails going all the way through the frame - well done

As for the apparent brightness, I realise that this depends on an awful lot of things - I would think, though, that if as many of these variables were as equal as possible then the brightness of the ISS would now be higher given it's increased size (presumably giving a larger reflecting surface?).

Again. a couple of well thought out images - nicely done and a huge thanks for showing!