Final Flight Of The Space Shuttle Atlantis Past & Over Singapore

[9V-Orion Images]

After 32 STS (Space Transportation System) missions covering a total distance of 194,168,813 km over 294 days in outer space and orbiting the Planet Earth 4,648 times at approximately 28,163 km/h, this is the final orbit of the Space Shuttle Atlantis (OV-104) with a visible footprint past the Republic of Singapore.

Coincidentally when the Space Shuttle Atlantis (OV-104) was visible during its flypast, it was just 2 to 3 minutes past the Orbital Manoeuvring System (OMS) Time of ignition (TIG) and Space Shuttle Atlantis (OV-104) was executing a deorbit burn with its dual Orbital Manoeuvring System (OMS) thrusters for an atmospheric re-entry (AKA entry interface) back into the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility (KTTS) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) an hour later at 2048 hours Singapore Standard Time (SST).

The Legacy of Atlantis

Tribute to Atlantis


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Preliminary observation briefing (unverified)...

 

[9V-Orion Images]

Weather was extremely uncooperative with a line of thunderstorm moving in from the northeast though fortunately the space shuttle managed to streak across before the rain clouds was able to obscured the sky completely, photos seems to be overexposed though if I decrease the EV even by 0.5 the streak will barely be visible. :think:

 

[rgborj]

Wow...interesting! :thumbsup:

 

[night86mare]

Weather was extremely uncooperative with a line of thunderstorm moving in from the northeast though fortunately the space shuttle managed to streak across before the rain clouds was able to obscured the sky completely, photos seems to be overexposed though if I decrease the EV even by 0.5 the streak will barely be visible. :think:

do layering, bottom -0.5ev, top part stay the same as now.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

Wow...interesting! :thumbsup:

Glad you found it interesting, often at night one might witness a star moving rapidly across the cloudless sky with a high chance of it being a man-made satellite instead. It is also easily distinguishable from atmospheric aircraft due to a lack of strobing anti-collision and navigation lights.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

do layering, bottom -0.5ev, top part stay the same as now.

Thanks for the tip.

This is the best I can do with my limited post-processing skill...

Space Shuttle Atlantis (OV-104)

... promptly followed by the International Space Station (ISS) chasing it on almost the same flightpath...

International Space Station (ISS) ​

Perhaps I really should have taken a shorter exposure with increased ISO and stack them instead.

 

[zarray]

how do you get hold of the space shuttle's flight plan to such accuracy?

 

[snowspeeder]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[icarus]

Interesting findings! Nice shot! :thumbsup:

 

[AlvinOMG]

Nice shot bro

 

[bayusuputra]

AWESOME!!!!!
sometimes i wonder how it feels not to be on Earth...
lucky astronauts!

 

[dingaroo]

Think we should start a sub-forum for non-terrestial objects?

Love the images you shared!

Cheers

 

[geekbrains]

Nice capture dude!

 

[Learnphotography]

Excellent! very good planning of the atlantis route! Seeing this kind of image you must be feeling great.

 

[9V-Orion Images]

Thank you all for your comments.

 

[Canew]

Superb shots... :thumbsup:

 

[9V-Orion Images]

how do you get hold of the space shuttle's flight plan to such accuracy?

There are plenty of resources available online such as open source planetarium softwares along with dedicated artificial satellite observation websites such as Heavens-Above and N2YO that automatically tracks and plots the trajectory of artificial satellites and celestial bodies either on a world map, star chart or both, in real-time and in the future.

Though for tracking OV-104 specifically during the STS-132 mission, I had relied on the NASA SkyWatch Java applet since the flight ephemerides data used is supposedly generated directly in Mission Control Center (MCC) by the Flight Dynamics Officers (FDO) rather than relying on possibly outdated Two-Line Element (TLE) set in the websites mentioned above.

Superb shots... :thumbsup:

Thanks, Canew. Really appreciate it.

 

[twin123]

i salute ur effort and passion not forgetting your great shots!

 

[spheredome]

This is remarkable. Thank you for sharing this picture.

 

[epalite]

Extremely impressed!

You got the timing and view angle right, you did excellent homework!

And there is only this window! Impressed! Nothing but impressed!