Photo of Tim Peake! (on International Space Station)

<p>Hi all, thought you might be interested in a shot of Tim Peake - OK, might be a slight exaggeration! (for non-UK based people he’s the first International Space Station visitor we’ve just sent so there’s currently quite a bit of media interest in him over here).</p>

<p>The ISS has spent that last couple of weeks passing the UK early evening and so making good opportunities to photograph. But the weather has not been good. Last Monday when I got home from work for once it was clear so I dashed out to watch it pass.</p>

<p>I had a D7100 and a Sigma 150-600. I focused on the moon manually through the eyepiece as live view was too wobbly and not that clear to see. I also set the exposure on the moon. Then waited and as predicted it came into view and passed quickly. In the couple of minutes it was in view I took a few images at different ISO and shutter speeds.</p>

<p>To my surprise you could recognise the ISS. It was small in the picture, probably not even 30 pixels across. In the sequence you can see it is rotating and as it rotated it picked the light off the sun differently and some shots looked clearer than others. I guess the atmosphere also plays a significant part in clarity.</p>

<p>Anyway, following are some images….</p><div></div>

<p>Camera view of the ISS – It moves quickly but it is OK to track once you found it in the viewfinder. It’s an unsharpened 100% crop in the corner</p><div></div>

<p>Some examples of how it changes angle and appearance in the couple of minutes it passed</p><div></div>

<p>It didn’t pass close to the moon. I’m not sure when or if ever it crosses the moon from viewing in the UK but to get a better sense of scale I cropped two together. I printed it up at 36x24 cm and it came out much better than I expected as on screen it looks a bit soft and grainy.</p>

<p>If you are interested I found 1/1250^th sec and ISO 400-800 best at f6.3. Upping the ISO appeared worse as the grain started to impact on your 30 pixels. The auto colour balanced looked fine.</p>

<p> I didn’t see Tim wave but I guess he’s busy</p><div></div>

<p>Joe, interesting that you can spot the International Space Station with a 600mm lens. However, you probably need to 2000mm/f11 Nikkor to spot Tim.</p>

<p>That is really cool. I had no idea you could see the International Space Station that clearly from earth. Bravo.</p>

<p>Nice work. The cropped image is very nice [thumbsup]</p>

<p>For a few days one summer I could see a bright object about 10° above the horizon for about 30 minutes. On one of the days I pulled out my F4, 2x teleconverter, and 75-300 zoom. The object was the international space station.<br>

It is quite distinct even if small in the frame.<br>

Nice work.</p>

That is amazing! We tried to spot the station this evening as it passed overhead but it was too cloudy. I am having the same luck spotting the station as spotting birds in this trip :-/

For anyone interested, sign up for alerts at spotthestation.nasa.gov

<p>Well done Jon!</p>

<p>I have a 1000mm f/11 reflex-nikkor, but I'm not convinced that it provides any more resolution than a decent refractive lens. Still, I'll give it a try on the D7200, that's if this darned cloud ever clears.</p>

<p>It's life Jon, but not as we know it!</p>

<p>Impressive. Thanks for sharing. Considerable effort is needed to do this kind of photography.</p>

<p>Jon,</p>

<p>I like the outcome! May have distracted Tim though ...<br>

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/science/space/timothy-peake-british-astronaut-dials-wrong-number-from-space.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=standard&contentPlacement=11&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2015%2F12%2F26%2Fscience%2Fspace%2Ftimothy-peake-british-astronaut-dials-wrong-number-from-space.html&eventName=Watching-article-click</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses.</p>

<p>I really wanted to plan a long exposure trail of it but the timing (for me to get to a suitable location in early evening) and definitely the weather here isn’t helping. Just popping outside the house trying this telephoto shot was much more convenient!</p>

<p>I think next time I might try the 1.3x crop mode jpeg at highest fps (7?) and stack some to see if I can get more information out of the images. If you get the exposure right you might not need the extra dynamic range in RAW.</p>

<p>On other nights I’ve had sharper single shot images of the moon (on the same set up) than this one so maybe the sky wasn’t as clear as it could be or the focus as good.</p>

<p>Great job Jon. Enjoyed it.</p>