Astronomy Picture of the Day: 11/19/13 - The ISS Transiting the Moon

In a truly one-of-a-kind photograph, astrophotographer Thierry Legault captured this detailed image of the International Space Station transiting the moon from our vantage point. This is such an incredibly difficult shot to capture since the ISS is constantly traveling at 7.5k meters per second, or about 28,0000 km/h (17,500 mph). Therefore, it only takes about half a second for the ISS to dance across the face of the moon. As you can (hopefully) see, the ISS was snapped here about an inch above the famous Tycho crater (not literally, of course. It just appears as such because of the photo"s size.)

Legault took this image from Avranches in Normandy, France a few hours before the eclipse, on December 20th of 2010. He used a Meade 10″ ACF on Takahashi EM400, with a Canon 5D mark II.

Additional Reading : http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/the-iss-transiting-the-moon/

Image Credit: Thierry Legault

P.S. You can sign up for alerts from NASA, who will contact you to let you know when the ISS is expected to pass over your location.

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