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Science at Parramatta High ISS - the International Space Station — January 4 2001 —
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Science at Parramatta High ISS - the International Space Station — January 4 2001 —
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The ISS can be seen at left in three separate "trails".
This image is a montage of three exposures - the two overlaid sections should be easy to see.
Each exposure is around 10-15 seconds, with a 50mm lens opened to f2.8 using 100ASA negative film.
The camera was piggy-backed on an equatorially-mounted telescope with the drive on (although this was hardly necessary
for such short exposures.)
The exposures were kept short to avoid sky-fogging. At the time of the ISS pass (roughly 8:55pm Parramatta time) it was still
twilight, and the 9½-day-old bright gibbous moon (to the left, out of frame) was lighting up
the background sky something shocking (hence the blue sky).
The passage of the ISS was predicted at the brilliant Heavens Above page.
It followed the predicted path precisely but was, strangely, about 5 minutes late.
The apparent magnitude of the Space Station is certainly greater than Saturn, but not quite as bright as Jupiter.
Return to astro images index page.
