Cloud dodging

Well, after another evening of things to do, getting in the way of being outside. I thought I'd try my hand at a spot of catching an Iridium flare on chip. Thanks to Geppetto for the technique. Checking on Heavens Above, I worked out that Iridium 47 at 23:22:19 was the optimal one to see. I also wanted to check if I could see Saturn's rings in my bins.

So I started out at 2300 with the bins mounted on the tripod to steady them and had a look. To be honest, I would have to say that I couldn't be sure. Saturn wasn't a perfect spot, but neither could I say for certain that what I was looking at had so much as a tiny bump on the edges. Ah well, so after a quick change around, the camera now on the tripod, bins around my neck. I got setup for the flare attempt. Using a compass I aligned the camera by eye on the azimuth bearing, and guessed an approximate altitude bearing. I figured that leaving the camera unzoomed, the image would be wide enough that I had quite some leeway.

I then had 20 minutes to burn, so spent the time trying to spot objects through gaps in the clouds by a process of gap scanning. This entailed pointing the bins at a gap, and moving through what stars I could see till I found something interesting. After a few minutes, I found Mel111. I think this is probably my favourite cluster at the moment, now that M45 has sunk, and M44 is sinking in the murk over the town in the west, and the globs are playing peekabo behind the houses. I noticed then that the Dipper was mostly visible and had a look at the horse and rider. Given that this is a double star that can be seen naked eye, in bins it's really very easy. I had a look for the engagement ring around Polaris, but even finding Polaris was tricky. Then whilst I was scanning for a gap in the cloud, along came a satellite. I haven't been able to figure out what this one was as yet, it passed over in a roughly South to North track at about 2315. HA indicates it might have been the ISS based on the time, but I don't think the track fits. I'd just written that pass down and was scanning for another gap in the clouds, when along comes another satellite. This time I was able to ID it as Lacrosse 4.

I spent the next 5 minutes clock watching, and checking the camera bearing. At 232210 I triggered the camera, thankfully I had checked I'd removed the lens cap, otherwise it would have been a total disaster. Then glancing quickly up, I caught Iridium 47 exactly where I'd expected it to be. Hooray. Then when the camera clicked off, I checked the preview. Nothing, well, I say nothing, greyish lumps. Blast (Ha, yeah right!!) I thought. Grabbed all the gear, came inside and put it all away. Then I downloaded the raw file from the camera.

Well, after loading it into PS and doing the raw conversion on it, what do I find, but the flare is there, almost dead centre of the shot lurking in amongst the clouds. A little processing with levels, curves and noiseware resulted in this :



I'm really quite pleased with that, as odd as it sounds from looking at it. It's not a great picture, but the flare is there. I've also caught Saturn and Regulus down and right from the flare. Now, if only I can do this again when the skies are clear.