Paul's Miscellaneous images

Miscellaneous Images

Of Satellites and Astro self portraits!

All images are copyright Paul Money unless otherwise noted.

I hope you enjoy looking at them and perhaps may think to have a go yourselves.
Most of these images were originally taken on slide film and have been scanned and transferred to CD ROM
where they have undergone slight brightness/contrast enhancement so they show better on these pages.
Click on the thumbnail for the one you wish to explore.

On March 29th 1996 at 04:13 GMT I made a point of getting up early to watch Comet Hyakutake and realised that the docked Mir/Discovery mission would be passing over at the time I was up. Imagine my surprise when they came over and had apparently only undocked shortly before! This image was just 30 seconds / 1600 ISO slide film with a 50 mm F1.8 lens. Direction of motion in this view was from lower right to upper left i.e. West to East and I am unsure which is which but based on the recent last (and final) docking mission between Mir & Discovery I suspect that the front one is the Shuttle. The bright star is Arcturus in the constellation of Bootes the Herdsman. Even on this scale (click on the thumbnail to see this!) you can see the gap between them widens due to them passing over (and therefore nearer) me. At the time I had hurt my back & couldn't lift anything heavy or bulky so I had to make do with the naked eye view & a simple camera on a tripod set up just outside my back door - but it still shows what you can get if you persevere! And now it's the turn of the International Space Station...
On February 14th 2001 after taking a few constellation pictures Lorraine & I were waiting for the ISS to come over with the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with it on mission STS - 98. The following 3 pictures were taken as they passed over from approx 18:44 to 18:48 GMT using a 50 mm lens at F1.8 and approx 30 to 40 seconds exposure on 100 ISO slide film. Notice that as the duo cross the sky they begin faint and gradually get brighter as they cross the sky and reach their brightest as they begin to pass through Gemini. This is simply due to the changing angle they made with us and the sun - similar to the phases of the moon. When they were near Venus we were looking at the shadowed side with only a small proportion of the craft illuminated by the sun but as they passed through Gemini we were able to look at the fully illuminated craft so they appeared brighter.

a) Approx. 18:44 GMT as ISS/Atlantis passes Venus over in the SW sky. Note the strange 'UFO' on the right of the frame - its the guttering of our house being illuminated by a street light! b) Approx. 18:47 GMT as ISS/Atlantis passes Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Taurus nearly due south in the sky and about 60 degrees high.

c) Approx. 18:48 GMT as ISS/Atlantis drops towards the Eastern horizon and passes through the constellation of Gemini. The next few nights I also continued to photograph the passes and was particularly interested in getting them when they had seperated on the Friday. Unfortunately I succeeded and failed at the same time as all the pictures ended up on the same frame as the film somehow became stuck & didn't wind on for each new exposure. However the resulting 'failure' has made an interesting image so I put it here as a piece of 'art'!

The 10" Newtonian under the stars at a favourite observing site of mine taken whilst a professional photographer Ben Birchal conducted a photo shoot of me 'observing'. So I thought I would also set up my camera as well!

I like to have 'fun' self portraits of when I'm out observing and these two images prove how dedicated I am - I mean - there's SNOW on the ground and telescope and I'm still out there observing!!!

Webmaster ã Paul L Money 2005

On March 29th 1996 at 04:13 GMT I made a point of getting up early to watch Comet Hyakutake and realised that the docked Mir/Discovery mission would be passing over at the time I was up. Imagine my surprise when they came over and had apparently only undocked shortly before! This image was just 30 seconds / 1600 ISO slide film with a 50 mm F1.8 lens. Direction of motion in this view was from lower right to upper left i.e. West to East and I am unsure which is which but based on the recent last (and final) docking mission between Mir & Discovery I suspect that the front one is the Shuttle. The bright star is Arcturus in the constellation of Bootes the Herdsman. Even on this scale (click on the thumbnail to see this!) you can see the gap between them widens due to them passing over (and therefore nearer) me. At the time I had hurt my back & couldn't lift anything heavy or bulky so I had to make do with the naked eye view & a simple camera on a tripod set up just outside my back door - but it still shows what you can get if you persevere!	And now it's the turn of the International Space Station... On February 14th 2001 after taking a few constellation pictures Lorraine & I were waiting for the ISS to come over with the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with it on mission STS - 98. The following 3 pictures were taken as they passed over from approx 18:44 to 18:48 GMT using a 50 mm lens at F1.8 and approx 30 to 40 seconds exposure on 100 ISO slide film. Notice that as the duo cross the sky they begin faint and gradually get brighter as they cross the sky and reach their brightest as they begin to pass through Gemini. This is simply due to the changing angle they made with us and the sun - similar to the phases of the moon. When they were near Venus we were looking at the shadowed side with only a small proportion of the craft illuminated by the sun but as they passed through Gemini we were able to look at the fully illuminated craft so they appeared brighter.
a) Approx. 18:44 GMT as ISS/Atlantis passes Venus over in the SW sky. Note the strange 'UFO' on the right of the frame - its the guttering of our house being illuminated by a street light!	b) Approx. 18:47 GMT as ISS/Atlantis passes Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Taurus nearly due south in the sky and about 60 degrees high.
c) Approx. 18:48 GMT as ISS/Atlantis drops towards the Eastern horizon and passes through the constellation of Gemini.	The next few nights I also continued to photograph the passes and was particularly interested in getting them when they had seperated on the Friday. Unfortunately I succeeded and failed at the same time as all the pictures ended up on the same frame as the film somehow became stuck & didn't wind on for each new exposure. However the resulting 'failure' has made an interesting image so I put it here as a piece of 'art'!
	The 10" Newtonian under the stars at a favourite observing site of mine taken whilst a professional photographer Ben Birchal conducted a photo shoot of me 'observing'. So I thought I would also set up my camera as well!
I like to have 'fun' self portraits of when I'm out observing and these two images prove how dedicated I am - I mean - there's SNOW on the ground and telescope and I'm still out there observing!!!