Four days with perfect clear blue sky in a row. On day three I set up my equipment two hours prior to the predicted transit, sat in the shadow and watched sunspots while waiting. But... then I noticed clouds on horizon above trees. In one hour thick cloud streak was moving slowly above me. Just in time to cover the Sun while ISS was transiting.
Anyway, I didn't give up but started to record PNGs 60 seconds before and 60 seconds after the predicted transit, with 32 microsecond exposure and 3 fps. Fps dropped due to my constant manual gain adjustments to compensate for cloud thickness changing.
At one point clouds were so thick that even with max gain I could not see the Sun at all. I thought of extending exposure time, but gave up because I wanted clear picture and didn't know if I would make it worse if clouds start thinning.
As I silently counted seconds and time of transition was near, clouds gave up a little bit and I started to see big gray circle... I again readjusted gain... continue counting... and clouds covered all again. I silently sat in my pool house, took a beer and sighed. After couple of sips clouds went south. And there it was again - perfect early summer blue sky.
Then I disconnected my laptop and put it on the table, opened first picture, and slowly browsed one by one.
And YAY!!!! There she was!!!!!
Picture 0109 was THE picture!!! I got her!!!!
So, even though this is not a picture you hang on a wall, I managed to capture ISS Solar transit. Cheers for me!
It would not be possible without Transit finder website by Bartosz Wojczyński (
https://www.astrobin.com/users/bar/ and
https://transit-finder.com/) and Chris Peat (
https://www.heavens-above.com/). Thank you guys!
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