I thought it would be cool to photograph the International Space Station. I believe the best way to do this is to catch it just as it’s transiting the Sun. This way the ISS would be sharply backlit and silhouetted. The trouble is this doesn’t happen every day. You have to go to a specific place at a specific time, and the weather has to cooperate. I’ve been waiting for such an opportunity for over a year! It’s also very challenging because its orbital speed is so fast (17,000 mph) that it crosses the Sun in a fraction of second.
Well today the stars aligned, so to speak, and I got the opportunity. I used a Micro 4/3 camera with my new Borg 90FL, and I actually captured it!
It was so tiny in the viewfinder that I could not see it at all with my eye. I just had to go on faith that my calculations were right and hope it would show up at the predicted time. I only found out that I captured it after I returned home and uploaded it to my computer!
If you look at the sunspot grouping in the lower right and compare it to yesterday’s picture, you’ll notice it has moved. That’s how much the Sun rotated in one day.
Below is a video of the entire transit event. As you can see it’s quite fast!
The shaking is due to the wind blowing pretty hard so that even with a stable tripod there was considerable movement.
[Update Feb 16, 2016]
A video editing professional graciously offered to stabilize and enhance my video:
<!– p class="has-text-align-center">[Edited by Doug Stringham at mediagrabbers.com]
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