Introduction

 

                                                                            

 

About this Website

Since 2006/2007, I have produced a lot of telescopic images of spacecraft in orbit including commissioned work and free work. Throughout the years, the images were used for different purposes ranging from internal purposes to publications on websites and books to television shows.This website presents more then a decade of active spacecraft imaging and shows a selection of free work - my best projects in satellite imaging. 

About the Author

 

As an applied astrophotographer, I'm doing systematic professional imaging work for various applications in space industry. Sometimes I'm also asked by satellite companies to do - if practical - ground-based imaging as they want to see how their product or experiment actually looks in space or even to get confirmation of deployment. Initially I was fascinated by the early Space Shuttle flights and later discovered astronomy. I was trained as a professional photographer living in the Netherlands. My two greatest interests, astronomical observation and photography were combined and finally I have practiced almost every possible field in astrophotography once, before finally getting into spacecraft imaging.Though, I always had a preference for dynamic objects such as the planets and for high contrast and high resolution imaging.

 

 

                                                             Contact:   E-mail:       ralf.vandebergh@home.nl  

                                                             New observations:    Twitter:  @ralfvandebergh

 

 

 

Starlink-L6 satellites just released by the Falcon-9 upper stage (bright object on the right), captured from The Netherlands, Europe on April 22, 2020 in the first orbit after the launch. Just after release, there are 2 trains because this is the way the    satellites leave the rocket. These 2 lanes are not visible separately naked eye. In the tracking scope it is an elongated spot

A brief History into Satellite Photography

 

At the time when I started imaging spacecraft only very few observers were active in the field so much of it still needed to be explored, an exciting time with much pioneering work involved. After having tried out almost every known area in astrophotography, from high resolution imaging of sunspots to comet photography but mainly active as a planetary photographer, I developed an increasing interest in spaceflight imaging and switched to that field around 2006. A small group of amateurs around the globe was exploring the technique to capture images of the International Space Station using backyard telescopes and cheap webcams. The advantage of live-imaging on screen in combination with much better sensitivity of webcams - compared to classic film - changed possibilities for amateurs dramatically, initially in planetary imaging. For decades, high resolution spacecraft imaging with amateur telescopes on classic film-emulsions was almost impossible due to the difficulties of the fast moving objects and the lower sensitivity of film, but also due to the small field of view required for a high-resolution image in combination with the high angular speed. The available video-mode of webcams and astronomical ccd-cameras is the key to successful easy spacecraft imaging with telescopes because the objects can be tracked with secondary scopes at low magnification and the videoframes can be reviewed as still images afterwards.   
                                       

Equipment and Technique

 

All images were taken with a 25 centimeter (10 inch) aperture Newtonian reflector operating fully manually. Tracking is realized using a smaller secondary scope at low magnification. Most images displayed on this site are taken using a commercial JVC camcorder mounted at the eyepiece. This camera has produced extaordinary detailed ISS images, and displayed the color in the NASA logo on the wing of the Space Shuttle over a distance of almost 400 kilometers. Many smaller satellites are photographed in good detail and especially in their subtle colors if present. Currently I'm experimenting with high-quality monochromatic astronomical ccd cameras to further improve signal-to-noise ratio in single-frame spacecraft images which looks very promising. The monochrome ATK-1HS camera attached to the telescope in the image below was used in 2007 to capture images of Space Shuttle missions STS-117 and STS-118.

Tracking

All of my spacecraft imaging work is realized by fully manually tracking the objects with the telescope. This is simply done by pointing a small secondary tracking scope at the object while a video module is taking images at the main scope. The easy satellite-tracking method used by me and other astrophotographers has an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that you can point your telescope at every (unprepared) moment at any object and start immediately capturing images without to deal with software etc. The disadvantage is that the efficiency of usable frames with this tracking technique is minimal. Therefore, most of my images of the ISS and smaller satellites are single frames. Only in a few occasions, the number of usable frames is a bit higher but even then there is still a limited number of frames available with the result that the gain in signal-to-noise ratio is only minimal. In less-then-favorable seeing conditions, I have experienced that it is not recommended to combine just a limited number of frames (for example 10 frames) as the differences in the images due to air turbulence can not be flattened out like in planetary imaging were hundreds or thousands of frames are used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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