ISS and Soyuz MS-13
Taken by Szabolcs Nagy on July 20, 2019 @
Wimbledon
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Details:
This was probably one of the finest moments since I have been taking photos of the International Space Station (ISS). Forward planning is key for these kind of events, but since success depends on so so many factors totally independent of me the only thing that can be done is waiting, preparing and hoping for the best.
So I went to the nearest park (Wimbledon Common) where I wanted to do two imaging attempts. First I waited for a lower ISS pass between 22:00-22:07 (with maximum elevation of 45°) and I was expecting the Soyuz minutes (around 10 mins) behind ISS. But shortly before my pass I received news from hungarian amateurs that according to their observation Soyuz is only a couple of minutes behind ISS. So when ISS appeared I started imaging and after it passed Jupiter I suddenly spotted the tiny spacecraft. Stopped ISS imaging, changed gain in Fire Capture software and started taking a video about Soyuz. None of the videos turned out to be good, but at least I saw them visually. Ohh and some south-korean guys watched it with me which was fun, they loved it!!
Then I hang around waiting for the next pass due between 23:37-23:43. Mind that the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft was due docking at 23:50. On my phone the live Nasa coverage was on and I saw on the left corner of the screen when they were showing the Soyuz external camera view that the distance between the spacecraft and ISS is rapidly decreasing. I really started to be worried, because at 23:32 they were already 0.8km away from ISS. Luckily they had to dock to the Zvezda aft docking port (the very end of russian segment), so they had to perform a fly around the station. I started recording the live coverage on my phone as soon as I first spotted the rising ISS, so this way I knew what part of the coverage coincided with my flyby. According to that when I recorded these images, the Soyuz spacecraft was only 75 metres away from ISS!! That is just mind blowing, the time was REALLY perfect, this probably only happens once in a lifetime…
Skywatcher 250/1200 Flextube dobson telescope
Zwo ASI224MC camera
TeleVue 2.5x powermate
Eq platform
More content about the event:
https://spacestationguys.com/iss-and-soyuz-ms-13-crewed-75-metres-away-from-each-other/
Photographer's website:
https://www.spacestationguys.com
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