This allowed me to start the video a few seconds before the ISS passed in front of the moon and let it run until the encounter was over. The ISS appeared right on time over in the southwest as it appeared to make a beeline for the moon which was high in the east.īecause the event was so quick, and because my reflexes aren’t what they used to be, I shot video of the event instead of still images. crossing of the ISS in front of the moon, something that would last about ¾ of one second. The event looked promising so I headed up to Benson on that Sunday evening for the 8:52 p.m. We just have to take our pictures of the event at the correct instant from the correct location.īack on April 2, the website listed a crossing of the ISS across the nearly full moon along a line from near Madison, North Carolina, across Fuquay-Varina and just north of Benson. Timing is key to a solar transit of the ISS because we can’t see it coming. The narrow 3-mile wide path crossed Clarkton in Bladen County. Last summer, I successfully captured the space station as it crossed the sun, using a telescope with a safe solar filter.
Armed with this information, amateur astronomers started regularly capturing the ISS in front of the sun and moon. Starting a few years ago, a couple of websites offered information for when a given location on Earth would see the ISS pass directly in front of the sun or moon. More: Backyard Universe: Could an inbound comet rival the famous Hale-Bopp for brightness? It’s big enough and close enough then to allow views of its actual structure with small telescopes.īut keeping a telescope pointed at the ISS as it moves across the sky is tough, since a telescope’s field of view is so small. When it passes directly overhead, the ISS is at its closest to us and therefore appears larger and brighter. The sun must still be shining on it for it to be easily visible, while our sky is generally dark right after sunset or around dawn. That’s the key to seeing the ISS when it passes over. It’s easy to see, too, since such a large object reflects lots of sunlight. TV meteorologists regularly tell when the ISS will make a favorable evening sky pass across North Carolina skies and popular phone apps can nail the next appearance of the ISS over any location. The ISS is also the most popular artificial satellite with the public.
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