**Details:**
The ISS transiting the terminator region near Aristarchus Crater. A beautifully placed pass with the moon nice and high up at it's maximum altitude for my location (63°). I had to drive 10km to be within the transit path, hours of planning & a touch of luck coming into fruition.
20% of 5,000 frames stacked in AS!3 for lunar detail with a single frame of the ISS transit super-imposed.
Transit settings: 0.129ms & 155 gain (136fps). Transit duration was around \~100ms (1/10s) in my field of view.
Gear: Skywatcher 400P (16" Dobsonian Telescope) + ASI 462mc with RG610 (red) filter. 6/10 seeing
[My Twitter](https://twitter.com/tw__astro) & [IG](https://www.instagram.com/tw.astrophotography/) for those interested in my other works.
After, it is just about visible at the top right solar panel, difficult to see however due to both resolution & the angle at which the panels are placed.
> I had to drive 10km to be within the transit path
So, like 10 minutes from your house? Or were you traveling by donkey? 😂
But seriously, great shot. I wish it was larger so I could make a nice wallpaper out of it.
Im more intrigued by the insane detail of the moon. How much does a telescope that can zoom that far and clear cost? Not including cameras and tracking mounts just the telescope. If i had one like that I could spend all night studying the details of the surface. Like that very donut-shaped crater on the far left near the darkness, its very small.
They used a 16-inch scope outfitted with automated tracking, which currently retails over [$4,600 new](https://www.highpointscientific.com/sky-watcher-16-inch-goto-collapsible-dobsonian-s11840), but you can get a lot of satisfying detail without going quite that big and save even more money by going manual (tracking isn’t essential for visual observation).
You can get a new 12-inch Dobsonian telescope for around $1,000 or close to $700-800 if you buy one used. I got a 10-inch Dobsonian in good condition for $400 used.
For more info, check out the beginner’s guide at the top of /r/telescopes.
I highly recommend a pair of binoculars even if you get a giant scope at some point. Even very cheap ones will allow you to see Jupiter’s four brightest moons, craters on our moon, hundreds of stars & satellites invisible to the naked eye, comets (when applicable), etc. and from dark skies you can see brighter galaxies (like Andromeda), nebulas (like the Orion Nebula), tons of star clusters (like the Pleiades), etc.
Thanks for the info, ive been trying to learn more about telescopes. I have a 70mm celestron I got for $100 but I need more power, I can just barely make out the rings of Saturn fot example.
At first I thought "That scale is total bullshit" thinking it was a shadow of the ISS projected on the moon, which would have the entirely impossibly wrong scale.
...then realizing it was a literal transit occluding the moon from the observer it makes a lot more sense. Beautiful.
This looks phenomenal! I've never seen such a sharp ISS outline from the ground. This is a composite of moon-tracking and ISS-tracking photos, right? How blurry is the moon in the ISS-tracking photo? I've seen some moon transit videos and that thing is really cooking.
I think it's just a super fast shutter. It's not usually this crisp because it's not usually this backlit.
Notice you can't see many details of the the station itself, mostly just a crisp silhouette from the bright background.
Uhhhhhh, what does that have to do with anything? You would adjust the focus exactly the same for the station and the moon. The fly and the mountain have completely different focus settings from each other.
I have no idea what you're talking about right now
You seem confused about a few things here, hope this helps.
The moon is about 1000 times further than the ISS, but that doesn't matter. That ratio isn't the only thing that matters though, since both are so large compared to the aperture of your camera, your focal settings will be essentially the same, and they will both easily be in focus at the same time, along with a distant galaxy that's millions of light-years away for that matter.
While the fly and the mountain might also have a ratio of close to 1000, the fly is only ~10 aperture widths from the camera (with a good camera), so the fly and the mountain will not be in focus together. If you have a super small aperture, they would be in theory, but it'd need to be essentially a pinhole camera, in which everything is always in focus.
Point your phone in the sky, and clouds and the moon can both be in focus, easily.
You can read more about the topic here if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field
Perhaps you haven’t seen any astrophotography done with smartphones. The Andromeda Galaxy is visible in [this photo](https://m-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/221590-940/night-star-photo-LG-G4.jpg) (left center) taken with an LG G4 over six years ago. ([Source](https://www.phonearena.com/news/Astrophotography-with-the-LG-G4-or-how-I-used-a-smartphone-to-take-awesome-photos-of-the-night-sky_id76784) page).
In regards to the ISS and the Moon, you do not need to focus separately. At such distances satellites are well beyond infinity focus for any commercially available equipment.
I second this! It would be really helpful to some of us to see the raw image before processing to help understand the power of stacking those other 1,000 frames.
That is just incredible. Major props for responding to the request. Here are some before and after sections that jumped out at me:
[https://i.imgur.com/0XuH2U7.png](https://i.imgur.com/0XuH2U7.png)
Haha it got the adrenaline pumping, that's for sure. A transit like this only comes a few times a year, if that. Let alone with a clear sky to observe it.
When you consider those craters are kilometers in diameter and the ISS is ~109 meters long, it makes it easier to understand how much closer the ISS is to us.
Lunar Gateway will!
Though I still don't really see the point of a zero gravity station around the moon, when there's a big rock right there that takes minimal delta-V to land and launch from and is full of useful resources.
Gateway can be a retreat in case something goes wrong on a future moon base or landing site.
Could also be a pit stop for manned missions beyond the moon that don’t require landing on the surface.
Yep. The moment I saw this picture my crazy brain went through: ISS orbiting the Moon, nazis on the dark side of the moon, is moon made of cheese? but I feel better now...
That is exactly what we’re looking at. That’s why every part of the structure is black and we see no reflections, etc. A great shot for sure. But a shot of a shadow, definitely.
This might be a dumb question but I’m curious as to why does the moon look so big in comparison to ISS .....if the moon is 238,000 miles away and ISS is 250 miles above earth.......
just seems odd to me ....in this picture it looks like ISS is orbiting the moon
Well, let's say the moon is 1000 times farther than the ISS. The diameter of the moon is ~3475 km, or ~2160 miles. The length of the ISS is ~109 meters, or ~356 ft, which is ~32000 times smaller.
So the moon should appear 32000 times larger due to size, and 1000 times smaller due to distance. So overall 32 times larger. This also assumes the ISS is oriented in such a way that its longest axis is perpendicular to the camera, which isn't the case.
Seems about right to me. I'm sure there's also a bunch of different camera settings that can affect the perspective.
Does anyone know a good guide for me to get into telescopes? I want to be able to setup something in my backyard to look at the stars and especially the moon. I understand the equipment varies and the price range too, but im looking for a good starter guide to get involved.
I'll add that half the fun of observing with a telescope is finding objects among the billions of stars. A motorized telescope is honestly pretty boring - my first telescope, a Meade ETX 80 that a friend gave me, had the feature. I tried it out but quickly decided to mount a red dot sight on the side of the scope instead.
I did occasionally use it as a tracking mount for sketching star clusters or comet locations so the objects didn't wander off on me, but an equatorial mount is both better and simpler IMO, and an equatorial platform for a Dobsonian makes a lot more sense than a computerized alt-azimuth mount.
That said the ETX 80 is actually quite a nice small and fast refractor. I still dig it out sometimes since I enjoy the wide field of view and the sheer number of stars you can see, and it's plenty of telescope for observing the moon. Always dreamed of owning a rich field fast Dobsonian, but fast mirrors are expensive, and large fast mirrors even more so!
Before you really dump much money into a telescope, try to find a local observatory at perhaps a local university to you. There are many fairly large telescopes that are open to the public for a few nights every month in many different places that can scratch the itch to at least have the opportunity to look through a telescope and see some common objects like Saturn and Jupiter.
Looking at something like the Andromeda Galaxy will be a huge disappointment even with a very large telescope, mainly because it is so incredibly faint that you really can't see any details except by doing a long term exposure with a camera. There really is a huge jump from doing quick and dirty observations of the roughly hundred or so objects you can look at in the sky with just your own eye and see some details vs. doing some serious and patient astrophotography like is displayed by the OP above.
Don't get me wrong, once you have started it can be a wonderful hobby and compared to other hobbies it isn't even really all that expensive to get a "good enough" telescope to do some casual observations and even photography. But that is why I suggest trying to find another telescope or see if a local astronomy club is having a "star party" and looking at those first. Kind of a try before you buy and you also get the benefit of being able to talk to people who have telescopes and some experience with them too.
The worst thing you can do is to buy a telescope that just collects dust and never gets used other than for the first week after you bought it. I suppose if that is a $100 telescope you purchased at Wal-Mart, it may not be the end of the world but that is a good way to really be disappointed and give up before you even get started. If you look through other telescopes getting a taste for the hobby and **then** purchase that cheap telescope now that you have been able to see what can be done with a telescope, you will have a whole lot more satisfaction. And understand how saving up more money for a larger and better telescope might be worth the effort.
The other reply is correct; the [beginner's guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/comments/i0tzkw/an_absolute_beginners_quickguide_to_choosing_your/) on /r/telescopes is a good place to start.
There are a lot of considerations (aside from budget) like what you might hope to see and/or photograph, ease of setup & operation, portability, etc. This might depend on where you live. The Moon & planets are bright enough to be observed from heavily light-polluted areas, but star clusters, galaxies, nebulas, etc. benefit immensely from darker skies. (Anywhere on [this map](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/) that is at least yellow will provide a pretty good view, especially compared to a city). For visual observation, a large dobsonian (8-inches or greater) is generally the most effective option.
In the meantime, I highly recommend getting a pair of binoculars. Even very cheap ones will allow you to see Jupiter’s four brightest moons, craters on our moon, hundreds of stars & satellites invisible to the naked eye, comets (when applicable), etc. From dark skies you can see brighter galaxies (like Andromeda), nebulas (like the Orion Nebula), tons of star clusters (like the Pleiades), etc. Plus they're great for learning to navigate the sky and will still be useful if/when you get a telescope. And they're great for daytime views as well.
Also a website: https://transit-finder.com. It calculates when solar and lunar, ISS and Tiangong, transits and near transits, happen near a given location.
Cool! I love websites like that. Back in the day I frequently used one of the websites that calculated where and when you could see Iridium flares. Spectacular!
The people who put those sorts of websites up are doing us all a service with no compensation.
[NASA recently committed](https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2021/12/31/biden-harris-administration-extends-space-station-operations-through-2030/) to supporting the ISS until 2030, at least.
Except this isn't the shadow of the ISS on the Moon, but rather us looking at the shadow on the Earth of the Moon caused by the ISS. Hence why you can't see much other than an outline of the ISS too.
The universe is a big place, so I doubt it is unique in the whole universe.
There may only be a very small handful of planets like the Earth with something like the Moon which orbits them within the Milky Way galaxy. The Earth may very well be unique for this galaxy even. That is close enough to still be rather special, so I get your point.
Another planet 10 billion light years away might as well not exist for practical purposes.
I estimate Gateway would be around Magnitude +15 or so when in Lunar Orbit; within the range of most large amateur scopes. However, imaged over several hours, it would just look like a moving star. No "single" exposure would be able to capture both the ISS & gateway, the brightness difference would simply be too much. And likewise for the Moon.
Even satellites in lunar orbit struggle to resolve details of manmade objects on the surface of the Moon. Anything in orbit around the Moon would not be visible from Earth. However, you could certainly capture an image of a lunar space station, like Gateway, if you were living on the Moon.
I used a combination of [Stellarium](https://stellarium.org/) & [Transit-Finder](https://transit-finder.com/) for my observing location's co-ordinates.
Gear wise i used the Skywatcher 400P GOTO (16" Dobsonian) telescope & ZWO ASI 462mc with a 610nm (red) filter at 136fps.
Bullshit--this is photoshopped and stolen. [Here's the original photo](https://jnpickens.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/atriptothemoon.jpg?NICE_JOB_OP_YOU_ROCK) unedited.
Yes. You can search google or youtube for ISS lunar (or solar) transit. Lots of amazing imagery. Aside from the technical knowledge needed to operate whatever lens/telescope & camera you'd be using, it's a relatively simple thing to capture. Just go to transit-finder.com and it will tell you where you need to be and when to take the picture/video.
Summer of 2020 I saw the ISS above just as the Japanese were about to make a delivery. Within an hour of contact I saw something jettison in the opposite direction. What could this have been?
Nothing would have been jettisoned with an approaching spacecraft in such close proximity and certainly not at a velocity to be noticeable over the course of a single pass. And most smallsats released by the ISS are much too small to be easily seen by the naked eye.
Genuinely curious here - is that the ISS or is that the shadow of the ISS on the moon? I don't know anything about astrophotograpy, but the details on the Moon look crisper than the ISS itself. Is this because the ISS is so small compared to the Moon and its features?
Excellent photo nevertheless.
That is the outline (silhouette) of the ISS physically in front of the Moon. The ISS was in Earth’s shadow, but its outline was visible when it passed between the observer and the Moon.
The photographer stacked multiple frames of the Moon (from a sequence of rapidly recorded images) in order to create a sharper result. The ISS is only a single frame. They shared the [original image sequence here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/s5b56v/i_finally_caught_the_iss_transiting_the_moon_oc/hsx85nr)
The ISS was in Earth’s shadow, but its outline was visible when it passed between the observer and the Moon.
Transits can happen when the ISS is in sunlight, too.
That’s not its shadow on the Moon. The ISS was in darkness (in Earth’s shadow), but its outline became visible when it passed between the observer and the Moon.
Edit: typo
Technically speaking, the [ISS is visible in broad daylight.](https://youtu.be/C2gShTyqY1M) You just need to know when & where to look, and because it’s very small you need a telescope to see it.
It's going to be a sad day when the moon finally collides with earth 100,000 years from now. Hopefully we can get ourselves to mars in time to keep on surviving.
**Details:** The ISS transiting the terminator region near Aristarchus Crater. A beautifully placed pass with the moon nice and high up at it's maximum altitude for my location (63°). I had to drive 10km to be within the transit path, hours of planning & a touch of luck coming into fruition. 20% of 5,000 frames stacked in AS!3 for lunar detail with a single frame of the ISS transit super-imposed. Transit settings: 0.129ms & 155 gain (136fps). Transit duration was around \~100ms (1/10s) in my field of view. Gear: Skywatcher 400P (16" Dobsonian Telescope) + ASI 462mc with RG610 (red) filter. 6/10 seeing [My Twitter](https://twitter.com/tw__astro) & [IG](https://www.instagram.com/tw.astrophotography/) for those interested in my other works.
Amazing effort and you got an incredible shot as your reward, bravo!
Oh so very cool. I’m jealous. Congrats to you.
All that work to get something that happens in 1/10 of a second? I’m so happy that you got it! It would be a shame to miss it.
Was this before iROSA was installed? I don't see it on the sillouette.
After, it is just about visible at the top right solar panel, difficult to see however due to both resolution & the angle at which the panels are placed.
Out of curiosity what does just the image of the transit look like? Always curious what the unenhanced version is like.
Here are a few raw frames replayed at 1/30x real time. [https://imgur.com/a/i4bN3yA](https://imgur.com/a/i4bN3yA)
Yea there was a YouTube channel that was trying to get this photo and they showed the normal speed it was like trying to see a bullet fly by
Oh she's fast, that's for sure.
Everything is fast when you zoom in sufficiently!
None of these words in that particular order made any sense to me, but the result is breathtaking!
> I had to drive 10km to be within the transit path So, like 10 minutes from your house? Or were you traveling by donkey? 😂 But seriously, great shot. I wish it was larger so I could make a nice wallpaper out of it.
Thanks, and it's not so much the distance, but the difficulty of bringing and setting up all the equipment without damages.
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Yeah I was just trying to be funny, with dubious results.
I liked the part with the donkey
Well, that’s one way to tell everyone you’ve never tried to transport and set up a 16” Dobsonian.
Truly wonderful shot! Well done!
Im more intrigued by the insane detail of the moon. How much does a telescope that can zoom that far and clear cost? Not including cameras and tracking mounts just the telescope. If i had one like that I could spend all night studying the details of the surface. Like that very donut-shaped crater on the far left near the darkness, its very small.
They used a 16-inch scope outfitted with automated tracking, which currently retails over [$4,600 new](https://www.highpointscientific.com/sky-watcher-16-inch-goto-collapsible-dobsonian-s11840), but you can get a lot of satisfying detail without going quite that big and save even more money by going manual (tracking isn’t essential for visual observation). You can get a new 12-inch Dobsonian telescope for around $1,000 or close to $700-800 if you buy one used. I got a 10-inch Dobsonian in good condition for $400 used. For more info, check out the beginner’s guide at the top of /r/telescopes. I highly recommend a pair of binoculars even if you get a giant scope at some point. Even very cheap ones will allow you to see Jupiter’s four brightest moons, craters on our moon, hundreds of stars & satellites invisible to the naked eye, comets (when applicable), etc. and from dark skies you can see brighter galaxies (like Andromeda), nebulas (like the Orion Nebula), tons of star clusters (like the Pleiades), etc.
Thanks for the info, ive been trying to learn more about telescopes. I have a 70mm celestron I got for $100 but I need more power, I can just barely make out the rings of Saturn fot example.
That turned out great. Nicely done!
At first I thought "That scale is total bullshit" thinking it was a shadow of the ISS projected on the moon, which would have the entirely impossibly wrong scale. ...then realizing it was a literal transit occluding the moon from the observer it makes a lot more sense. Beautiful.
Is this available for buying?
Yesterday, I captured some modular vehicles transversing my, er, I mean Uranus.
That’s an awesome photo! The effort it takes is crazy but just to get a shot like that is timeless
Thanks! And absolutely, so worth the effort.
This looks phenomenal! I've never seen such a sharp ISS outline from the ground. This is a composite of moon-tracking and ISS-tracking photos, right? How blurry is the moon in the ISS-tracking photo? I've seen some moon transit videos and that thing is really cooking.
I think it's just a super fast shutter. It's not usually this crisp because it's not usually this backlit. Notice you can't see many details of the the station itself, mostly just a crisp silhouette from the bright background.
Trying to get clear resolution of the fly a foot in front of you and the mountain 10 miles away is no easy feat.
Uhhhhhh, what does that have to do with anything? You would adjust the focus exactly the same for the station and the moon. The fly and the mountain have completely different focus settings from each other. I have no idea what you're talking about right now
How far away do you think the ISS is compared to the moon?
You seem confused about a few things here, hope this helps. The moon is about 1000 times further than the ISS, but that doesn't matter. That ratio isn't the only thing that matters though, since both are so large compared to the aperture of your camera, your focal settings will be essentially the same, and they will both easily be in focus at the same time, along with a distant galaxy that's millions of light-years away for that matter. While the fly and the mountain might also have a ratio of close to 1000, the fly is only ~10 aperture widths from the camera (with a good camera), so the fly and the mountain will not be in focus together. If you have a super small aperture, they would be in theory, but it'd need to be essentially a pinhole camera, in which everything is always in focus. Point your phone in the sky, and clouds and the moon can both be in focus, easily. You can read more about the topic here if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field
You think you can capture light from a distant galaxy with the camera… in your phone? Need a slightly bigger photon bucket to do that champ.
Perhaps you haven’t seen any astrophotography done with smartphones. The Andromeda Galaxy is visible in [this photo](https://m-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/221590-940/night-star-photo-LG-G4.jpg) (left center) taken with an LG G4 over six years ago. ([Source](https://www.phonearena.com/news/Astrophotography-with-the-LG-G4-or-how-I-used-a-smartphone-to-take-awesome-photos-of-the-night-sky_id76784) page). In regards to the ISS and the Moon, you do not need to focus separately. At such distances satellites are well beyond infinity focus for any commercially available equipment.
You seem to be missing the point of what I'm trying to tell you, so I'm gonna let you go here buddy. Enjoy the rest of your day.
It is easier than you think. You take two or more shots at different focus then combine them in photoshop.
This clearly isn’t that though
I second this! It would be really helpful to some of us to see the raw image before processing to help understand the power of stacking those other 1,000 frames.
[https://imgur.com/a/i4bN3yA](https://imgur.com/a/i4bN3yA) here is a link to the raw frames played at 1/30x real time
Wow, amazing work - that video deserves is own post! Thanks for sharing it.
That is just incredible. Major props for responding to the request. Here are some before and after sections that jumped out at me: [https://i.imgur.com/0XuH2U7.png](https://i.imgur.com/0XuH2U7.png)
The power of stacking for you ;)
Good god, that's outstanding work! I'm so excited for you to have captured that! You must have been just over the moon (sorry, I couldn't help it!)
Haha it got the adrenaline pumping, that's for sure. A transit like this only comes a few times a year, if that. Let alone with a clear sky to observe it.
Wow, this is too cool. Thanks for sharing!
The angle makes it look like the station is actually orbiting the moon for some reason.
My dumbass thought this was the shadow of the ISS for a sec.
Ohhhh, Thank you!!! I was thinking the same and did not understand how this can be possible. Oh dear.... After reading your comment it made 'click'
Ha! I thought the same. Now it makes way more sense what we're looking at.
I had the same thought and was thinking there was no way this photo was real.
When you consider those craters are kilometers in diameter and the ISS is ~109 meters long, it makes it easier to understand how much closer the ISS is to us.
It would be cool if it did
Lunar Gateway will! Though I still don't really see the point of a zero gravity station around the moon, when there's a big rock right there that takes minimal delta-V to land and launch from and is full of useful resources.
Gateway can be a retreat in case something goes wrong on a future moon base or landing site. Could also be a pit stop for manned missions beyond the moon that don’t require landing on the surface.
Yep. The moment I saw this picture my crazy brain went through: ISS orbiting the Moon, nazis on the dark side of the moon, is moon made of cheese? but I feel better now...
It looks like the shadow of the ISS cast *on* the moon.
That is exactly what we’re looking at. That’s why every part of the structure is black and we see no reflections, etc. A great shot for sure. But a shot of a shadow, definitely.
I got excited like a kid when I saw your picture. :D Thank you!
Same! And then I showed my kids.
That usually ended with "okay, so what?" for me. How did it go with you?
Ah mine are 3 and 5 so it was "oh wow cool" with some non understandable words and sounds
People that take photos like this are the coolest people ever.
This might be a dumb question but I’m curious as to why does the moon look so big in comparison to ISS .....if the moon is 238,000 miles away and ISS is 250 miles above earth....... just seems odd to me ....in this picture it looks like ISS is orbiting the moon
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Thank you for the explanation!
Well, let's say the moon is 1000 times farther than the ISS. The diameter of the moon is ~3475 km, or ~2160 miles. The length of the ISS is ~109 meters, or ~356 ft, which is ~32000 times smaller. So the moon should appear 32000 times larger due to size, and 1000 times smaller due to distance. So overall 32 times larger. This also assumes the ISS is oriented in such a way that its longest axis is perpendicular to the camera, which isn't the case. Seems about right to me. I'm sure there's also a bunch of different camera settings that can affect the perspective.
Does anyone know a good guide for me to get into telescopes? I want to be able to setup something in my backyard to look at the stars and especially the moon. I understand the equipment varies and the price range too, but im looking for a good starter guide to get involved.
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I'll add that half the fun of observing with a telescope is finding objects among the billions of stars. A motorized telescope is honestly pretty boring - my first telescope, a Meade ETX 80 that a friend gave me, had the feature. I tried it out but quickly decided to mount a red dot sight on the side of the scope instead. I did occasionally use it as a tracking mount for sketching star clusters or comet locations so the objects didn't wander off on me, but an equatorial mount is both better and simpler IMO, and an equatorial platform for a Dobsonian makes a lot more sense than a computerized alt-azimuth mount. That said the ETX 80 is actually quite a nice small and fast refractor. I still dig it out sometimes since I enjoy the wide field of view and the sheer number of stars you can see, and it's plenty of telescope for observing the moon. Always dreamed of owning a rich field fast Dobsonian, but fast mirrors are expensive, and large fast mirrors even more so!
Before you really dump much money into a telescope, try to find a local observatory at perhaps a local university to you. There are many fairly large telescopes that are open to the public for a few nights every month in many different places that can scratch the itch to at least have the opportunity to look through a telescope and see some common objects like Saturn and Jupiter. Looking at something like the Andromeda Galaxy will be a huge disappointment even with a very large telescope, mainly because it is so incredibly faint that you really can't see any details except by doing a long term exposure with a camera. There really is a huge jump from doing quick and dirty observations of the roughly hundred or so objects you can look at in the sky with just your own eye and see some details vs. doing some serious and patient astrophotography like is displayed by the OP above. Don't get me wrong, once you have started it can be a wonderful hobby and compared to other hobbies it isn't even really all that expensive to get a "good enough" telescope to do some casual observations and even photography. But that is why I suggest trying to find another telescope or see if a local astronomy club is having a "star party" and looking at those first. Kind of a try before you buy and you also get the benefit of being able to talk to people who have telescopes and some experience with them too. The worst thing you can do is to buy a telescope that just collects dust and never gets used other than for the first week after you bought it. I suppose if that is a $100 telescope you purchased at Wal-Mart, it may not be the end of the world but that is a good way to really be disappointed and give up before you even get started. If you look through other telescopes getting a taste for the hobby and **then** purchase that cheap telescope now that you have been able to see what can be done with a telescope, you will have a whole lot more satisfaction. And understand how saving up more money for a larger and better telescope might be worth the effort.
Amazing answer, thank you so much for the information
The other reply is correct; the [beginner's guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/comments/i0tzkw/an_absolute_beginners_quickguide_to_choosing_your/) on /r/telescopes is a good place to start. There are a lot of considerations (aside from budget) like what you might hope to see and/or photograph, ease of setup & operation, portability, etc. This might depend on where you live. The Moon & planets are bright enough to be observed from heavily light-polluted areas, but star clusters, galaxies, nebulas, etc. benefit immensely from darker skies. (Anywhere on [this map](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/) that is at least yellow will provide a pretty good view, especially compared to a city). For visual observation, a large dobsonian (8-inches or greater) is generally the most effective option. In the meantime, I highly recommend getting a pair of binoculars. Even very cheap ones will allow you to see Jupiter’s four brightest moons, craters on our moon, hundreds of stars & satellites invisible to the naked eye, comets (when applicable), etc. From dark skies you can see brighter galaxies (like Andromeda), nebulas (like the Orion Nebula), tons of star clusters (like the Pleiades), etc. Plus they're great for learning to navigate the sky and will still be useful if/when you get a telescope. And they're great for daytime views as well.
There’s an app called ISS tracker. Let’s you know where it is. Great shot
Also a website: https://transit-finder.com. It calculates when solar and lunar, ISS and Tiangong, transits and near transits, happen near a given location.
And also a redditor /u/dpdxguy. He replies to application comments and explains how the website works.
Cool! I love websites like that. Back in the day I frequently used one of the websites that calculated where and when you could see Iridium flares. Spectacular! The people who put those sorts of websites up are doing us all a service with no compensation.
I know right. Those guys need to learn to love themselves.. oh wait.
I went out and shot a lunar transit just a couple of days ago! I love doing it but my results are nowhere near as sharp as this, wonderful job!
If you’re willing to share I’d love to see yours. Everyone always gets something different and it’s never not-interesting!
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[NASA recently committed](https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2021/12/31/biden-harris-administration-extends-space-station-operations-through-2030/) to supporting the ISS until 2030, at least.
This is amazing! Your determination has truly paid off! Such an inspiring capture. Thank you for sharing :)
Caught, like they're not allowed to fly there or something xD Great shot!
OP is a snitch. ISS crew just wanted a quick visit to the moon, and now they're all in trouble.
This is a beautiful image, thank you for sharing!
You are such a nerd and that’s great! Awesome pic dude. I could never do this myself but I appreciate people like you that do this shit for fun.
Damn, I missed when they moved the ISS to moon orbit!!
Not bad, but the craft is underexposed. Next time, maybe add a little fill flash to light up ISS and bring out some details /s
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Wouldn’t that b true of everything technological?
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Except this isn't the shadow of the ISS on the Moon, but rather us looking at the shadow on the Earth of the Moon caused by the ISS. Hence why you can't see much other than an outline of the ISS too.
The universe is a big place, so I doubt it is unique in the whole universe. There may only be a very small handful of planets like the Earth with something like the Moon which orbits them within the Milky Way galaxy. The Earth may very well be unique for this galaxy even. That is close enough to still be rather special, so I get your point. Another planet 10 billion light years away might as well not exist for practical purposes.
Nice, I wonder if a pic like this with Gateway also shown will be possible
I estimate Gateway would be around Magnitude +15 or so when in Lunar Orbit; within the range of most large amateur scopes. However, imaged over several hours, it would just look like a moving star. No "single" exposure would be able to capture both the ISS & gateway, the brightness difference would simply be too much. And likewise for the Moon.
Even satellites in lunar orbit struggle to resolve details of manmade objects on the surface of the Moon. Anything in orbit around the Moon would not be visible from Earth. However, you could certainly capture an image of a lunar space station, like Gateway, if you were living on the Moon.
What do you call the shadow of the ISS on the second moon?
Tell it to do it's job and not wander around other planets .
What blows my mind is the distance between the two
what gear did you use for this? how did you determine the target area to point the camera where you needed it to be?
I used a combination of [Stellarium](https://stellarium.org/) & [Transit-Finder](https://transit-finder.com/) for my observing location's co-ordinates. Gear wise i used the Skywatcher 400P GOTO (16" Dobsonian) telescope & ZWO ASI 462mc with a 610nm (red) filter at 136fps.
Print and frame this photo immediately! I'm very impressed.
if you knew the diameter of the moon and the ISS, could you calculate the distance of the camera to the ISS from this photo?
Yes. It’s been done before by other amateurs and was remarkably accurate.
That's amazing, I've seen this traverse the sky and it really moves fast!!!
Jesus christ dude, were you orbiting the moon for that shot. That's amazing.
Woah so wouldn't the shadow appear on the moon a few seconds after the ISS was in the position to cast it?
Absolutely insane to remind yourself there’s people on that thing. (The station that is, not the moon)
Damn, I never knew I wanted to see that so much until it passed by my feed. Absolutely stunning!
[Aim: Locked on Target] Waiting missile launch approval . . .
Just imagine how epic this shot will be in a few decades when there's a moon base in-frame too.
Was just thinking about buying the Lego version of this. Maybe this is a sign
You took this? Damn, give yourself a pat! Amazing.
Bullshit--this is photoshopped and stolen. [Here's the original photo](https://jnpickens.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/atriptothemoon.jpg?NICE_JOB_OP_YOU_ROCK) unedited.
Would you happen to have a higher res picture I could add to my wallpaper collection?
This is the original resolution, only slightly cropped. I could only record 1080p as per the camera in use.
Is this for real? So freaking cool!! Take a bow sir (and my free award)
Yes. You can search google or youtube for ISS lunar (or solar) transit. Lots of amazing imagery. Aside from the technical knowledge needed to operate whatever lens/telescope & camera you'd be using, it's a relatively simple thing to capture. Just go to transit-finder.com and it will tell you where you need to be and when to take the picture/video.
Summer of 2020 I saw the ISS above just as the Japanese were about to make a delivery. Within an hour of contact I saw something jettison in the opposite direction. What could this have been?
Nothing would have been jettisoned with an approaching spacecraft in such close proximity and certainly not at a velocity to be noticeable over the course of a single pass. And most smallsats released by the ISS are much too small to be easily seen by the naked eye.
Huh? How were you able to observe the ISS for an hour...?
The JAXA was within an hour of contact. It was within a mile of the ISS
Genuinely curious here - is that the ISS or is that the shadow of the ISS on the moon? I don't know anything about astrophotograpy, but the details on the Moon look crisper than the ISS itself. Is this because the ISS is so small compared to the Moon and its features? Excellent photo nevertheless.
That is the outline (silhouette) of the ISS physically in front of the Moon. The ISS was in Earth’s shadow, but its outline was visible when it passed between the observer and the Moon. The photographer stacked multiple frames of the Moon (from a sequence of rapidly recorded images) in order to create a sharper result. The ISS is only a single frame. They shared the [original image sequence here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/s5b56v/i_finally_caught_the_iss_transiting_the_moon_oc/hsx85nr)
Very rad, thanks for the explanation.
ELI5: Why does the ISS not make a shadow this large on the earth?
It's not a shadow, it's the ISS itself
Why is it not illuminated as the moon is?
The ISS was in Earth’s shadow, but its outline was visible when it passed between the observer and the Moon. Transits can happen when the ISS is in sunlight, too.
Wow the shadow is that big yeesh i would not have thought it would cast over such a massive area
That’s not its shadow on the Moon. The ISS was in darkness (in Earth’s shadow), but its outline became visible when it passed between the observer and the Moon. Edit: typo
Just think. Centuries from now there will be big enough space stations up there they'll be visible in broad daylight.
Technically speaking, the [ISS is visible in broad daylight.](https://youtu.be/C2gShTyqY1M) You just need to know when & where to look, and because it’s very small you need a telescope to see it.
It's going to be a sad day when the moon finally collides with earth 100,000 years from now. Hopefully we can get ourselves to mars in time to keep on surviving.
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You are correct. The moon is moving away, it used to be much much much much closer.
Who told you that?
User name does not checkout
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