Randall's Photo Blog

This evening (Wed. 9/9/09) I went out to watch the International Space Station fly over head. It was supposed to be a long and high arc from my back yard. I had two recent failures to capture it on "film" - one time my lens didn't focus properly (or I didn't focus properly, really). The next time I didn't use a solid enough support. I did get a fair shot on Monday. The shuttle just undocked from the ISS to land and the shuttle was supposed to fly over a minute before the ISS. The shuttle is a bit dimmer (because it is a lot smaller). I set up the camera and started the exposure when I saw the ISS. I used my 10-22 lens on my T1i. The f number was set at 7.1 and the iso rating was set to 1600. I set the AWB to daylight and used a "cable release" remote. The exposure was 73 seconds. When I looked at the shot on the computer it looks like I got the shuttle and the ISS!

The brighter line in the middle is the ISS. There was a plane that crossed the sky during the exposure as well. However the faint line towards the top must have been the shuttle. It wasn't blinking like a plane and it was just before the ISS. According to NASA they should have been a minute apart which would be about right. A lucky shot as I hadn't set up to get the shuttle at all.