International Space Station and The Moon

On Jan 4 2012 a NASA photographer at the Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston, Texas used a regular Nikon Camera and lens to capture images of the International Space Station passing between Earth and the Moon.

Despite being 240 miles above, you don’t need specialist equipment to see the Station. In fact, this picture was taken two days ago by a Nasa photographer using an ordinary digital SLR camera – a Nikon D3S – as it passed above Houston. (The Daily Mail)

But that’s not the first time images such as these have been captured. Discover Magazine’s Bad Astronomy Blog posted about German amateur astronomer Bernhard Christ’s similar photos back in 2009.

That’s the International Space Station crossing the face of the Moon, what astronomers call a transit (like an eclipse, but when something small goes in front of something big). This image is actually a composite of several images taken in a row, with some sharpening to make it cleaner looking.

The transit only lasted for 0.4 seconds, so Christ had to be on the ball to capture this. He used a digital astronomical camera that can take what is essentially video (really just rapid still shots, but after all that’s what video is), and processed the individual frames. It’s a gorgeous image, with the Moon looking really stunning. (Bad Astronomy)

Flickr User Brad Pennock also captured the ISS and The Moon last October:

-Mike

Sources:

• The Daily Mail
• The Weather Channel
• Bad Astronomy

UPDATE: found an article on how to take photos like this in your own backyard. There’s been some discussion on Reddit about the relative  attainability of the equipment necessary to do this. Here’s the link.