The very talented astrophotographer Ralf Vandebergh has done it again! He’s captured an astonishing view of the International Space Station:
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Wow. You may remember Ralf’s earlier ISS shot, or when he caught an astronaut doing an EVA.
This image was taken on August 29, before the current Discovery mission, and shows the station gleaming in sunlight. On the right he has helpfully pointed out the Japanese Experiment Module, named Kibo. It consists of a pressurized module as well as a platform outside, exposed to space. The Exposed Facility was brought up to ISS in late July 2009 by Endeavour, and is the newest addition to the station.
[UPDATE! Ralf just sent me another great shot, this one taken after the Shuttle launch, as Discovery approached the station. The Orbiter is not in the same field of view as ISS so he added it to the ISS picture as an inset:
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Pretty cool, huh?]
Mind you, this shot was taken with a 10 inch telescope, which is considered small-to-moderate in size these days. Even more amazing, Ralf manually tracks the telescope while taking pictures of the station! No fancy computers autoguiding or anything like that. Just good old-fashioned steady hands and lots and lots of practice.
Congrats to Ralf for another incredible shot!
September 1st, 2009 at 8:23 am
I’ve taken my family to a local dimly lit parking lot a couple of times to see ISS pass overhead, in the evening.
One time in particular I think Endeavour was docked and there was an EVA underway. To think that bright dot moving across the sky had people inside (and even outside). It was amazing. Can’t wait to see it again!
September 1st, 2009 at 8:33 am
One more reason I need to move to the country…I miss seeing stars in the sky at night.
September 1st, 2009 at 8:57 am
In America, you photograph satellite. In Soviet Russia, satellite photograph you.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:06 am
@ Shane:
LOLski!
September 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am
I got chills looking the photo you linked with the astronaut doing an EVA. Unbelievable.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am
If conspiracy theorists are looking for new ideas*, the ISS sure is starting to look like a swastika.
*Hey, I like to help out where I can.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:12 am
Awesome. That’s very impressive.
(I noticed another Keith posting here)
September 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am
Speaking of conspiracy theorists, did any of you read that even Neil Armstrong is now saying that he didn’t land on the moon?
Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked
Oh yeah….
September 1st, 2009 at 10:50 am
Why am I seeing double?
September 1st, 2009 at 11:27 am
@Shane
It never gets old!
September 1st, 2009 at 11:47 am
@Shane
I LOLed too, but here’s a little nitpick. Ralf is from the Netherlands
/Saw some of his pics at Spaceweather.com and some other sites. All of them hand-guided. This guy must be a genius. Kudos!
September 1st, 2009 at 12:06 pm
i just love seeing this come over has any one here seen it in daytime i have once very early am
September 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
@chaboyax
Searching for daylight passes? Look at http://www.heavens-above.com. Select your observing site and you’ll get daylight and night passes with altitude, azimuth and the exact times.
September 1st, 2009 at 12:50 pm
That’s amazing. I recently saw the flyover when the shuttle and space station where closing in on each other. Awesome!
September 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
There’s a actually a reason that most of the best photos of the ISS and shuttle are taken with small telescopes: it doesn’t help to use larger ones. Resolution is effectively set by the “seeing” and one of the main determinants of that is called the “Fried parameter” which is essentially (and somewhat simplistically) the average size of a refracting blob of air above the telescope.
Even at great seeing sites, that’s around 10-20 cm or about 4-8 inches. Once your aperture gets much larger than that, you’re averaging over lots of little blobs of air, which makes things worse. Most of these shots are also taken with very short exposure times, to help “freeze” the seeing. Professionals have learned this technique from amateurs and call it “lucky imaging”.
(well, it can help to use larger telescopes, of course, if you have a million dollar adaptive optics set up…….).
September 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
There was some loon on godlikeproducts stating that the ISS was fake.
Here’s a link to a site that give you information on ISS sightings.
http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/
September 1st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Ralph’s certainly committed and does great with the equipment he has. Anyone with observing time on maybe a 50″ telescope want to try to see what comes up? Just whack a digital movie camera on the back – that’s got beamsplitters filters and multiple detectors so you don’t get artefacts due to changing filters and don’t get such bad artefacts if you need to blow up the image. Of course you’ll need a ‘scope which can be programmed to track an object in orbit and which can slew pretty fast.
September 1st, 2009 at 8:48 pm
[...] Gracias senor BA! [...]
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 am
Brilliant
..
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:49 am
In case you sit in bed one night (or day) and wonder how many people are in space right now, here you’ll find the answer: http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/. Though, it doesn’t say how many mice or frogs are in space.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:54 am
thanks Fritriac thats how i find them but good info for people that didnt know
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
A collection of Ralf’s best images of the ISS, Space Shuttle and other Satellites, including information about Ralf himself, is here:
Amazing Images of the International Space Station
Well done on this excellent new image, Ralf!
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
[...] recently ran across these amazing picture of the International Space Station taken by Ralf Vandebergh. So I went looking for his work on the [...]
April 27th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
[...] including several of the space station. Ralf’s images have graced this blog before, including this one of the station, a picture of Discovery and ISS from an earlier mission, and one actually showing an astronaut [...]