RASC Hamilton ISS Solar Transit on August 27

[David Galbraith]

Hi everyone,
Thanks Muhammad for the tip on this transit. A very interesting experience.  

I set up in the parking lot at Royal Botanical Gardens, 680 Plains Road West in Burlington, which is about 0.8 km off of the predicted centre line of the transit. I put a Nikon D800 on a Meade 125 TB Maksutov Cassegrain telescope and ran 30 fps video for about 90 seconds either side of the predicted transit. I had no idea if I had any luck with this until I got home and could run the clip on a computer. This procedure did indeed capture the transit. As predicted, the ISS covered the sun's disk in under 2 seconds - in 54 frames in fact.
I extracted the frames and ran StarStax to try to get a stacked version. I am sure something like PhotoShop would do a better job, but I don't have access to it. My first attempt at a composite image using the stacked frames is attached. The station is visible in nearly every frame, although the subject was very challenging because of the cloud cover. The moving clouds made for an interesting effect in StarStax, but the station is not as clear in the composite as it is in most single frames. 
I would be grateful for processing recommendations. I am extracting the relevant frames as a video clip too. 
cheers,
David GalbraithDundas, ON

Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2015 19:07:32 -0400
From: bscphm at gmail.com
To: astronomers at hamiltonrasc.ca
Subject: Re: RASC Hamilton ISS Solar Transit on August 27

Did anyone see or photograph the event? There seemed to be a clear window at the time.Muhammad Basil AhmadRPh, HonBSc, BScPhm, CDE

On Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 2:03 PM, David Galbraith <dr_d_a_galbraith at hotmail.com> wrote:
This is really interesting
Fyi - a clear view of the western horizon will be necessary, as the sun will be at 15 degrees elevation or less at transit.
Weather forecast at the moment not looking great, however. 

Best wishes,
David




On Aug 23, 2015, at 11:17, Muhammad Basil Ahmad <bscphm at gmail.com> wrote:

Coming up over the Hamilton area.
Thursday, August 27, 2015 around 6:25 PM.
I'll be at work, otherwise, I'd try to photograph it.
https://www.calsky.com/?Transitline=&showhome=&obs=4870767060583&tdt=2457262.43482751&sat=25544&interval=0.00011574&step=0.00000231&mainbody=0

Muhammad Basil AhmadRPh, HonBSc, BScPhm, CDE

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