Space stations are worse than planets! The stars really do need to be aligned: the station needs to pass above my location, it has to pass through selected areas of my sky, unobstructed by trees, it has to pass at nighttime, it needs to be reasonably high up in the sky, the weather/sky needs to be clear, my focus and exposure need to be set properly,  and my tracking needs to work! nevermind the atmospheric conditions for clear imaging! Sheesh… well here is the Chinese Space Station (Tiangong/CSS) again, this time with a full pass, with decent focus and illumination! As before, I used my 12″ LX200 Meade on a Paramount MyT but this time using my ASI385mc camera to do the high resolution imaging. I’m still using my 12mm focal length lens with an ASI120mc camera to do my low resolution satellite tracking. However, I bought a 25mm lens that I plan to test to see if my tracking can improve with a higher magnification.

The GIF below shows the results of a CSS pass in the early evening of July 17, 2026. The clip consists of 96 of the best frames (out of about over 1800!) from my tracking sequence alongside a model view of the CSS to show the isomorphism between the image and the actual structures. If you click here, you can see my low res tracking window associated with the CSS pass.