Another ISS transit of the moon

[lukebl]

Hi all,

There was a lunar transit of the International Space Station this evening, visible from my location so I thought I'd give it a bash, but not expecting anything remotely as good as carldr's superb image of a couple of weeks ago.

I took images with my Canon 450d on my 250mm f/4.7 Newt continuously over a period of around 20 seconds at the time of the transit (19:09:46), resulting in 57 separate images. It was a bit of a long shot at only 3 frames per second, given that not much of the moon is illuminated and the ISS flits by in a split second. Anyway, I sifted through each image, but just couldn't find the ISS. As I'd expected, I'd missed it but I thought, ho-hum, I'll stack the images in DSS anyway, and here's the result.

Quite pleased with the result. After doing the stacking, I was about to trash the 57 images, when I finally noticed that the ISS actually was present in one frame, a thin slither on the edge of Mare Crisium. It was obviously oriented 'side-ways-on' as the solar panels weren't presenting their usual H-shaped appearance. Here's an extract of the single frame...

.. an here's an animation of 10 frames (might take a moment or two to load). Ok not as good as Carl's result, but a result all the same.

[carldr]

Luke,

You've done very well to capture it on such a small sliver of the Moon! It's a shame it wasn't face on to you, I think it would have made a great image against the archetypal crescent moon.

Good luck for future transits.

C.

[lukebl]

Thanks Carl. When you think about it, the Solar panels are presumably always aligned toward the sun, so when it transits a crescent moon the geometry means that it can never be face-on. I guess that's why you need a solar transit, or a transit of the full moon like your image, to get the full face-on view.

[markt]

Great result!

[Astrokev]

Thanks Carl. When you think about it, the Solar panels are presumably always aligned toward the sun, so when it transits a crescent moon the geometry means that it can never be face-on. I guess that's why you need a solar transit, or a transit of the full moon like your image, to get the full face-on view.

Very logical thinking and great image! That explains why my solar transits always show the H profile!

I haven't been lucky enough to see a lunar transit as yet, but live in hope.