The International Space Station (ISS) has always held a deep fascination for me, I find it absolutely amazing that there are at any one time, between three and six people on board, whizzing round the planet around 18 times per day.
Over the years I have found various web resources pertaining to the ISS, from sites that allow you to track its movements through the skies, to ones that give you live(ish) camera feeds. However in all of that time, I have only ever seen one video that showed the ISS from Earth, this was in a Veritasium2 video on Youtube. In the video, the channel owner Derek was filming during the last solar eclipse visible from parts of the United States. As he filmed the event, we got a brief glimpse of the space station traversing across an eclipsed sun for a brief moment.
I found this absolutely incredible, that with the right information, conditions, and a wee bit of luck, the ISS could be viewed from Earth.
However; little did I know!!
Look To The Stars
Last year a friend of mine invited me to join a facebook group called The Baker Street Irregular Astronomers. The group is run by a bunch of amateur astronomers based in London, England. They post up pictures of various heavenly bodies, taken with relatively cheap telescopes and digital camera equipment, and I'm often impressed by the results.
However, last week I saw a picture on there that completely and utterly blew me away, a picture taken of the ISS through a telescope standing in somebody's back garden!
I literally did not think this was possible, as the ISS is travelling at around 17,500 mph and takes roughly 90 minutes to complete one full orbit of the Earth, meaning it passes over the UK in a couple of minutes or so. I'm not sure of the exact time, but as far as London's concerned, it must pass over us in mere seconds, yet as you can see below, not only did amateur astronomer , Szabolcs Nagy capture the space station, he captured amazing details.
The images were captured at around 04:24 on the 9th of May, in the High Beta Angle, which is apparently why two of the solar panels appear invisible to us.
More Detail
I messaged Mr Nagy on Facebook, congratulating him on his wonderful photography, he thanked me and pointed me to his website, as the pictures are not compressed there, and we can see even greater detail.
So I urge you to go to Space Station Guys and view these amazing images and show your support for his work. Also there, you will get information on the equipment used, and see more stunning Near Earth Orbit photography.
Live Space Station Tracker
ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment
Space Station Guys
WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS; ARE YOU INTO THE ISS AND ASTRONOMY IN GENERAL? WHAT ARE THE MOST EXCITING SPACE PROJECTS TO YOU?
ALSO, DO YOU THINK IF YOU SHOWED A FLAT-EARTHER THE ISS THROUGH A TELESCOPE WITH THEIR OWN EYES, THEY'D DROP THEIR RIDICULOUS BELIEFS?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!