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!
Manually curated by @minnowvotes
Thank you, much appreciated.
Cg
A couple years ago, I was really into space.
I did not have a telescope though, so when I did see the ISS it was just a streak in the sky.
I've never seen it myself. For the last couple of years, I've really been thinking about getting a telescope.
Cg
There are apps that tell you when it's passing over you.
I've seen it passed over a few times as a bright dot, but that's a great pictur. I had a telescope, but not the skills to capture decent pictures. One Xmas eve we tried to convince the kids the ISS was Santa. It is amazing that they're are people up there all the time.
Don't get me started on flat-earthers.
I've always missed the times to see it with my own eyes, I have tracked it via a web app before..
Ha, yes! Santa's a good one. I think the last Christmas Eve it was visible across the moon from Southern England? :-)
Cg
I think most flat earthers would need a lot more to convince them than just seeing the ISS with their own lying eyes.
I think you're right. Did you see the Behind The Curve documentary? Even their own experiments weren't enough to convince them. Lol.
Cg
@cryptogee thanks for sharing that image and the source - it's quite impressive.
I can remember when I was younger, I had a friend who was working as an intern at NASA when they were manufacturing and shuttling up the components to build the ISS. He was allowed into the clean room, and took some pics of the ISS interior as he crawled through it. I have to see if I still have those pictures somewhere.
Thanks for stopping by @lpfaust, and yes! Please do see if you can find those images, I'd love to see them :)
Cg
I'm going to have to visit that Facebook group, it sounds interesting. It's fascinating what people can accomplish without much money or high-end equipment. I've seen the space station whirling by while I was up on the North Shore of Minnesota. There's almost zero light pollution up there and it is incredible all you can see. Once, in the late 90's, I tent was camping near Grand Portage and we saw three points of light very high up (maybe in the stratosphere?) performing unbelievable maneuvers. They would be stationary and then suddenly zip what must've been hundreds of miles in just a matter of seconds. It was a sight to see.
You really do, it's amazing! Here's the link. Baker Street Irregular Astronomers
Man I would love to go somewhere with zero-to-little light pollution and stare up at the stars. That must have been pretty amazing to see those lights!!
Thanks for the link! It was pretty fascinating. We're lucky here, we can drive just a few hours north and you can see millions of stars. If you ever find yourself in the Twin Cities (during the warm months) let me know and we can take a drive up there.
I joined the group @cryptogee. I'm really enjoy it. Thanks again for sharing it!
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