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Amateur Astronomer Grabs Amazing ISS Picture

Posted by samzenpus on from the good-focus dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Ralf Vandebergh is an amateur astronomer, and using a simple telescope with a video camera attached to it, he took an incredibly detailed picture of the International Space Station. You can easily see the recently-installed truss and solar panels, as well as the Space Shuttle Discovery docked to the station."

80 comments

  1. If they want to save power by iminplaya · · Score: 1

    They should turn off those stadium lights

    --
    What?
    1. Re:If they want to save power by FatAlb3rt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's a football field, 200 miles away, traveling at 17,500 mph.

      You try it.

    2. Re:If they want to save power by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      It must be a reflection of the sun.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:If they want to save power by MeanMF · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's blurry because it's taken through miles of atmosphere. That's why Hubble is in orbit and most observatories are on top of mountains.

    4. Re:If they want to save power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoosh - and no, that wasn't just the space station going overhead.

    5. Re:If they want to save power by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      most observatories are on top of mountains.

      Not an easy thing to find in the Netherlands.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    6. Re:If they want to save power by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      ...grainy piece of crap?

      Pretty strong opinion for somebody who knows nothing... :-)

      --
      What?
    7. Re:If they want to save power by stonedcat · · Score: 1, Funny

      I've seen a pair of really nice mountain in the Netherlands belonging to a girl named Hope.

      --
      You can't take the sky from me.
    8. Re:If they want to save power by digitalchinky · · Score: 2, Informative

      Probably a good deal of that blur can be removed though - there are some stunningly detailed images of area 51 from 26 miles away taken through a telescope using multiple images to remove the atmospherics:
      http://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/panorama_0608.html

      Naturally this would be a little more challenging with the ISS since it's moving pretty fast through the scope - probably need a motor drive on it to keep it steady.

    9. Re:If they want to save power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Lame to mod this troll. I am a photographer, and I had to read it to find out why it's "amazing". It doesn't look that impressive unless you know what went into it.

      I'm still really surprised to find out how impressive this lousy looking fuzzy shot really is. On a clear night, with the right equipment, I would have assumed you could do much better.

      Am I troll? Or just uninformed?

    10. Re:If they want to save power by fractoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except it's not, it's the cheer squad ON the football field. And you're complaining because you can't see their tits clearly.

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    11. Re:If they want to save power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      And you're complaining because you can't see their tits clearly.

      Well, duh. Wouldn't you?

    12. Re:If they want to save power by FTWinston · · Score: 1

      Adaptive optics would be the way to go. And realise that your images of area 51 have the camera and target within the same atmospheric layer, making the problem considerably more trivial.

    13. Re:If they want to save power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I thought it was blurry because he was hand tracking it (moving the telescope manually) -- a 25cm netwonian is a pretty decent sized scope though (just under 10")

    14. Re:If they want to save power by BigBlueOx · · Score: 1

      Am I troll? Or just uninformed?

      You're just uninformed ... unless you are a very GOOD troll!

      You are simply spoiled by all the soooper hi-res photos of space thingys that are viewable on the webz. Unless you pay close attention to such stuff, it's easy to get the impression that photos of space thingys should always be razor-sharp and colorful. The fantastic images provided by Hubble haven't helped that situation. Unless you care, you probably haven't bothered to notice that even space-telescope pictures, taken without Earth's blurry atmosphere in the way, are often false color or enhanced color, highly-processed images that sum thousands of individual shots into one soooper view.

      To get a high-magnification image from the ground the photographer not only has to fight the atmosphere (imagine taking portraits from the bottom of a filled swimming pool - it's a lot like that) but is doing battle with the laws of optics that say (more high-magnification) == (dimmer)+(blurrier).

      This particular shot of the ISS from a 9cm scope is "amazing" because it shows a lot of detail for a picture of a 100-meter-wide object at 350 km. What's also "amazing" is that he was tracking the ISS by hand. (!!) If you've ever tried to track a high-magnification view of the freaking moon by hand, you're impressed.

      No, the picture is not "amazing" if you compare it with automated-tracking 3-meter-aperture-scope shots that have been imaged processed to death but it is amazing for a picture that sums the frames from a webcam view through a 9cm scope that was hand-tracked. Webcam. Sheesh.

    15. Re:If they want to save power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except it's not, it's the cheer squad ON the football field. And you're complaining because you can't see their tits clearly.

      Seems like a legitimate complaint to me!

    16. Re:If they want to save power by Ghost+Hedgehog · · Score: 1

      Well the area of Maastricht is the highest we've got.

    17. Re:If they want to save power by BeanThere · · Score: 1

      You *admit* you nothing about the topic, then proceed to shoot your mouth off with a strong opinion about it anyway. I never get that.

    18. Re:If they want to save power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a football field, 200 miles away, traveling at 17,500 mph.

      You try it.

      The relative speed of the object is almost completely a non-issue. What matters is the relative angular velocity.

      Ya, it's a neat picture for a novice astronomer/photographer. But is is NOT "incredibly detailed". Perhaps relatively detailed, but not "incredibly".
      Any kid in the right geographic area with a high-power telescope, tripod, and camera could take this picture. It's just that most of them don't go posting it all over the internet.

  2. WOW!! by TinBromide · · Score: 2, Funny

    IT DOES EXIST!!

    Does it mean that the moon landing happened too?

    --
    Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
    1. Re:WOW!! by LingNoi · · Score: 1

      It would be cool to build a telescope dedicated to seeing the flag on the moon. However I'll just be happy with the mirror they put up there so we can shine a laser and measure how far the moon is away from the Earth.

    2. Re:WOW!! by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      Bah. How do you know astronauts put the mirror up there? I'm sure that back in 1969, NASA could land something on the Moon which would reflect back a laser.

    3. Re:WOW!! by FTWinston · · Score: 2

      Yep, land, deploy the mirror, then leave again, leaving behind nothing but a flag and the lower stage of a LEM... hell, if they could have done that with robots, there'd have been no point in sending the astronauts.

    4. Re:WOW!! by Archon-X · · Score: 1

      Luckily for you, these are already in place:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment
      http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/experiments/lrr/

    5. Re:WOW!! by chadplusplus · · Score: 1

      With current technology, its impossible to see the flag on the moon. I didn't check this site's math, but it confirms what I've read several times before. According to their calculations, we'd need a telescope with an aperture of approximately 800 feet to just barely see the flag. But even with adaptive optics, atmospheric distortion would still be the limiting factor. The Keck telescope has a best angular resolution of about 5 milliarcseconds with adaptive optics. The flag from Earth is about a 10th of that (4.716 x 10^-4 arc seconds).

      Regarding the "blurriness" of the ISS photo. I've dabbled in some astronomy and astrophotography and its really amazing (or frustrating) just how much shifting and blurring you see while looking through a telescope at high magnification.

    6. Re:WOW!! by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1

      Ummmm...yeah...I think that was the GP's point.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  3. Par for the course... by Wiener · · Score: 5, Informative
    Ralf, quite simply, takes amazing photos. From what I understand, these are manually tracked snapshots.

    He has a number of photos posted at Cloudy Nights in the "Planetary and Solar System Observing" forum.

  4. A simple technique taken to an extreme by The+Hooloovoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    He basically used a method reminiscent of a technique used by amateur astronomers to take pictures of planets and asteroids: take a lot of frames using a cheap webcam and stack them together, weeding out the bad ones as you go.

    The principle behind it is pretty simple. When it comes to seeing nearby planets (Pluto and friends are obviously exceptions), telescopes are limited less by magnification and more by atmospheric distortion. What's not clear from the article is if this is a single frame grab (which is pretty cool but not an incredible technical feat) or if he managed to track it precisely enough to stack a few frames.

    1. Re:A simple technique taken to an extreme by Skapare · · Score: 4, Informative

      Stacking frames does not require precision tracking. You only need to track it well enough to keep it in the frame. And in some cases partially out of the frame still has limited usefulness. The software correlates the positions based on what is in the picture. If there's enough of a pattern to make the alignment (at sub-pixel resolution), then it's easy. If it's fuzzy, you might have to do the alignment manually.

      --
      now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    2. Re:A simple technique taken to an extreme by david.given · · Score: 3, Informative

      ...take a lot of frames using a cheap webcam [wildimaging.co.uk] and stack them together, weeding out the bad ones as you go.

      You might be interested to have a look at some software called ALE, which can be used to do this more or less automatically; you give it a sequence of frames and it'll synthesize a superresolution image combing data from every frame.

      (You can also use it to generate panoramic images from video pans --- it automatically locates, rotates and transforms every frame correctly, figuring everything out for itself!)

      The only problem with it is that it's really slow, so you'll probably want as big a computer as you can humanly manage.

      One day I should try taking some simple digital camera footage of the moon and running it through ALE just to see what happens...

    3. Re:A simple technique taken to an extreme by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might be interested to have a look at some software called ALE, which can be used to do this more or less automatically; you give it a sequence of frames and it'll synthesize a superresolution image combing data from every frame.

      Sounds like the FOSS version of Photosynth.

    4. Re:A simple technique taken to an extreme by F�an�ro · · Score: 1

      since the angular speed and direction of the ISS an other orbital objects is constant and known, do you even need fancy alignment correlation?

      If you have precise timing for your shots, would it suffice to align the first and last picture, and the alignment of the rest can be infered from them?

  5. obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thats no moon,it IS a space station give the man some geek points!

    1. Re:obligatory by Spinalcold · · Score: 2, Funny

      Honest to the Force, my friend's daughter was taught by her mom to decern the Space Station from the Moon, "that's no moon, thats a space station". So when she went away, her daughter (3 years old) grabbed her dad, pulled him to the bedroom and pointed at the space station, and said "No Moon, Space Station."

      Give geek points to the 3 year old, she deserves them!

    2. Re:obligatory by sirmonkey · · Score: 1

      *family joe*

      ha!

      --
      bored? try this http://jadmadi.net/blog/2005/01/27/linux-wine-how-to-running-windows-viruses-with-wine/
    3. Re:obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even without the ObSW quote, the man gets some geek points for an awesome photo.

      Still, the quote is extremely appropriate here. Take a point for yourself.

  6. Click to embiggen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These are perfectly cromulent pictures for an amateur. :-)

  7. On a clear night... by pallmall1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...you can see forever.

    --
    3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
    1. Re:On a clear night... by stox · · Score: 4, Funny

      On a clear disk you can seek forever.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    2. Re:On a clear night... by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      My hat is off to you, Mr. Sinatra :).

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
  8. Another way to view by Skapare · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can view things up in orbit this way too. Just don't do it without the proper filtering protection.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  9. Impressive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Best photo of a streetlight I've ever seen.

  10. Can anyone else see the wires? by spankyofoz · · Score: 1

    The blurring has almost hidden them, but put the image through a gaussian filter, and all is revealed.

    Plus you can see the tiles missing from the space shuttle

    --

    - There is no point, it's like a sphere -
    1. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by MeanMF · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you run it through the image processing software they use on 24, you can actually make out the license plate number too.

    2. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, look closer -- I see a naked chick!

    3. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Any sign of that bat?

    4. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      I can see the wires too, holding it up. ISS is definitely a hoax, like the moon landings (which were actually filmed on a stage on Venus).

      Also, a better title for this story might be "Hobbyist does something hobbyists do every single day, but we're short on news today here at Slashdot."

    5. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      +5 Funny.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    6. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Enhance!

    7. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you run it through the image processing software they use on 24, you can actually make out the license plate number too.

      Even though its on the other side, facing away from us.

      They can lift the print of the guy who screwed it on too.

      But the real feat is that they can make out the license plate of the car across the street of a suspected terrorist by enhancing the reflection on one of the space stations windows, on a cloudy day.

      I used to enjoy TV. Its almost sad. I can watch a rerun of something like "Columbo" and I find fewer plot holes and more credible police work, more credible set designs, more credible ... everything, than I do on CSI. Sure in Columbo the villain was usually improbably or even implausibly ratting himself out... but compared to the routine violation the current limits of technology, and in many cases the known limits of even theoretical sciencce we are subjected to in the CSI's... Columbo is actually the more beleivable... by far.

    8. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by cbuskirk · · Score: 1

      If you run it through the image processing software they use on 24, you can actually make out the license plate number too.

      As 24 taught us, all you gotta do to enhance/scan/hack thru any computer problem is open another socket.

    9. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by Ihlosi · · Score: 1

      If you run it through the image processing software they use on 24, you can actually make out the license plate number too.

      Quick! Someone send these guys a speeding ticket!

    10. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      I find this a lot more interesting than some article about RIAA this or that. We don't all have the read the same stuff.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    11. Re:Can anyone else see the wires? by tixxit · · Score: 1

      Deus ex machina - it gets old quick.

  11. That picture sucks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look how blurry it is!

  12. click to embiggen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that was a perfectly cromulent article

  13. What about Rayleigh Criteria? by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I mean I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting pretty close to that limit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_criterion#Explanation To make that short I kind of remember this from my physics class that ultimately the limit on being able to differentiate between 2 objects depends on the size of your main mirror/lens and the wavelength of light you use. (IE a bigger main mirror or shorter wave length of light means you can differentiate between closer and closer objects.) If I remember correctly I did the math and found out that you'd need a mirror about 250 meters across to resolve the landing site on the moon from an earth based telescope. (But I can't remember if that resolution was 1 meter or 30.)

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  14. Also... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

    Maybe I've been living in a barrel, but I believe he's come up with a cool new verb as well:

    "embiggen". As in "click to embiggen". Nice, I'll use that... ;-)

    1. Re:Also... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Huh. Feel free to mod me -1 ignoramus or whatever. Just discovered I have indeed been living in a barrel, since I don't follow the Simpsons. :-)

    2. Re:Also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now you see what you've been missing.

    3. Re:Also... by Zugok · · Score: 2, Funny

      This time it was not a cromulent word to use.

      --
      "I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
    4. Re:Also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh. Feel free to mod me -1 ignoramus or whatever. Just discovered I have indeed been living in a barrel, since I don't follow the Simpsons. :-)

      Don't worry, it was a perfectly cromulent post.

  15. A mirror -- just in case by The+2nd+.+Oracle · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com.nyud.net/badastronomy/2009/03/25/shuttle-and-station-imaged-from-the-ground/

    Funny how nyud.net has disappeared from /. in the last few years. I kinda miss the reliability. It seems like twice a day some poor website is blasted half way around the world because of /., why not use nyud.net some more?

    1. Re:A mirror -- just in case by paganizer · · Score: 1

      I hadn't noticed, but yeah, where is the love for nyud?
      It's always the first thing I try to pull up a non-loading site; I've also used it as a form of cheap file mirroring.

      --
      Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
  16. No Subject by Orphaze · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's certainly a good image, but not the best. This image of Ralf's, for instance, is noticeably more clear. He has many more amazing images though on his site here.

    1. Re:No Subject by LateArthurDent · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's certainly a good image, but not the best. This image of Ralf's, for instance, is noticeably more clear. He has many more amazing images though on his site here.

      Holy shit. There's a picture of his on that site which actually managed to capture an astronaut on a spacewalk. Talk about impressive.

      Thanks for the link, there's a whole lot of very interesting shots there.

  17. Vandeberghâ(TM)s 25 cm Newtonian Telescope by Flyin+Fungi · · Score: 1

    I am trying to get a pic of this Vandeberghâ(TM)s 25 cm Newtonian telescope. I wanted to get an idea of the size of a telescope you would have to use to get his kind of picture. Google is of no avail. Help?

    1. Re:Vandeberghâ(TM)s 25 cm Newtonian Telescope by The+Bad+Astronomer · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a 10 inch mirror. I owned a 'scope like that for over 20 years, and it's a pretty decent instrument. It looked like a water heater; a foot across and two yards long.

      --
      *** Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer http://www.badastronomy.com
  18. Huh? by Vectronic · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Too late for the trolls? I was really expecting a goatse comment somewhere...

    "Amateur Astronomer Grabs Amazing ASS Picture"

    Come on, "amateur", "astronomer", "grabs", "amazing", "ass", and "picture"... fine, just mod me down and resume as normal.

  19. Amazing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Amazingly blurry, maybe. The photo referenced is nowhere near in focus.

    How in the blazes of hell this photo could be considered "amazing" is beyond me.

    I've seen clearer photos from UFO hoaxers.

    1. Re:Amazing? by Kredal · · Score: 1

      UFO hoaxers don't generally claim to find things that are in orbit.

      --
      Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
  20. Wait... conspiracy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait a second... so it's not all a conspiracy?

    Good God! We must have made it to the moon, too!

  21. Cloudy Nights? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The website for fat American guys with too much money, who know everything there is to know about small American-made telescopes (ie "How they're the best of the best of the best, and anything made in China is junk."), but don't know a damn thing about astronomy?

    Yeah, great site. For people who are looking for this month's obsession.

  22. I'd really like by MrKaos · · Score: 1

    to photograph the earth from the ISS.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  23. Irresponsible by CmdrGravy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't believe the government are allowing people to take these sorts of images. This is just a gift to the terrorists, they'll be able to see exactly which parts of the space station to target and may even be able to bring the whole thing down on a major population centre.

    Unbelievable !

    1. Re:Irresponsible by PhxBlue · · Score: 1

      I know you got modded funny, but you should have gotten some "insightful" points as well -- because this is how some military folks actually think.

      An anecdote: Our office is in charge of creating a display for a local airport. The plan was to showcase some of the satellites we control and some information about what they do. A couple of weeks into working on things, someone from higher headquarters said they were concerned about including information on how high the satellites are above the Earth.

      Yes -- some knothead decided that we should omit information like the satellites' altitude, despite the fact that this information is already freely available to the public.

      Oh, and this higher headquarters? It's the same agency that's now responsible for "defending cyberspace."

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
  24. This guy does better than that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In fact in one of his latest posts on cloudynights, Ralf has shown that it's also possible to image an astronaut on an EVA activity.

    Here's the link http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2997606/page/1/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

  25. Faked Picture by StormReaver · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is obviously a fake. If you look closely, you can see the wires holding up the space station! The only rational conclusion is that the space station was filmed in front of a live studio audience under strict NDA. Quick! Somebody notify Fox News! They'll do one of their award winning exposes. They'll probably even be able to get Geraldo to unmask the perpetrators!

  26. Darn by Locke2005 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Now we'll have to listen to Sarah Palin claiming "I can see the Space Station from my house!"

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.