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Photo captures space station crossing the moon

209 points by monkeydust 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago
That is indeed a stunning photo. Especially considering that the ISS orbits at around 400km and the moon at ~380,000km. It looks like it would be in a dangerously low orbit around the moon.
- seba_dos1 5y ago
  Yeah, it all looks kinda Little Prince-esque.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    The "Tiny Planet" / "Little Planet" effect! https://wiki.panotools.org/Unusual_remappings https://wiki.panotools.org/Unusual_remappings >Little planet >Fisheye little planet remapping result © Erik Krause >Stereographic little planet remapping result © Erik Krause This is a remapping already used by Helmut Dersch as a thumbnail for his virtual Marburg tour on [2], where he remapped an equirectangular full spherical panorama to a 360 degree fisheye image with the nadir in the center and the zenith at the circle border. This is the same projection as used in the first example. >Nowadays most GUI front-ends feature stereographic and fisheye output projection directly. Stereographic is far better for Little Planets since the outer regions are less compressed and hence keep their natural proportions. The stereographic example here has a smaller Field of View (250°) although the apparent size of the planet is approximately the same like the fisheye one. >Some Panorama Viewers like f.e. KRPano or DevalVR also feature stereographic projection or even "Little Planet" directly. How to create high resolution (hi-res) "Tiny Planet" images with your drone and DJI Go 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATZmiKKaMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATZmiKKaMw Dyson Sphere Project seems to distort and exaggerate the field of view to produce that same effect. Or maybe it's just that its planets are actually tiny! But you feel quite gigantic walking around them. GIANT ROBOT; SMALL PLANET | #1 | Dyson Sphere Program | Lets Play/Guide/Walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTU97bAMM4&t=2m28s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTU97bAMM4&t=2m28s Another interesting perspective: What If The Moon Were As Close As The ISS? (VIDEO) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/moon-as-close-as-iss-video_n_4124338 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/moon-as-close-as-iss-video_n_... The nice green field, blue sky, and fluffy clouds in the video would probably be a smoking bubbling magma hell-scape thanks to the intense tidal forces, though.
potamic 5y ago
It's cool. But much clickbait with the title?
- lmilcin 5y ago
  No, the title is not a clickbait. This is best photo of ISS transiting Moon I have seen, by a large margin.
  - nuccy 5y ago
    Indeed. There are also pretty stunning transits of the Sun (with Canadarm and Crew Dragon resolved) on the photographer's website [1]. But Moon transits are likely much more challenging since it is much fainter as a background than the Sun. 1. http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_transits_june2020.html http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_transits_june2020.html
    - mikeInAlaska 5y ago
      I would guess the Moon is actually much brighter once you filter the Sun to safe levels.
- monkeydust 5y ago
  OP here - think I followed guidelines here. "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  What definition of clickbait are you using here? In my head, clickbait is still "You won't BELIEVE this ONE CLEVER TRICK! Astrophotographers HATE him!", or something like that. I'm guessing you don't like the emotional wording in "jaw-dropping"?
amne 5y ago
Anyone know what are the chances of this happening again in the future? Except the "take the photo" part. I'm talking about: - it's night - clear sky - right geo coordinates - ISS passing between the moon and said right geo coordinates Just thinking of these and then add on top that you have 0.5s to take the photo. This was truly a "right moment, right place, right person" kind of thing.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  There is a lot of occasions for observations if you are into it. This photo is not a happy accident, though. It took careful preparation. Let's see... it looks that at a distance of 400km we can see features of size roughly 1m (or even better). This points to resolution of 0.01 arcsecond which is fenomenal for an amateur setup.
  - gliptic 5y ago
    That's not quite right. 1 meter at 400 km distance is ~0.51 arcseconds, which is on the edge of doable with good seeing. 0.01 arcseconds would never be possible within the atmosphere.
    - jcims 5y ago
      The most depressing statistic here (for me anyway) is that to directly image the nearest exoplanet at 1km per pixel we're going to need a telescope with ~.000000005 arcseconds of resolution. Someone check my math but that would be like imaging the ISS at the nanometer scale from the surface of the earth.
      - rocqua 5y ago
        Now compute what kind of virtual aperture size it takes to get this resolution without being diffraction limited. Edit: I did it, about 25000km (for light with a wavelength of 500nm), or twice the radius of the earth. That actually suggests it could be doable with a constellation of telescopes in high orbit.
jcims 5y ago
Thierry Legault does some of the best solar system astrophotography I'm aware of (or at least the stuff I'm most interested in). Many amazing images of ISS and other spacecraft, images of the surface of the sun, lunar images, lunar occultation of other planets, etc etc. This is just another example of his excellent work. More examples here: http://www.astrophoto.fr/ http://www.astrophoto.fr/ Edit: That said there are some amazing amateur astrophotographers quietly going about their art. https://astrobin.com https://astrobin.com is their Flickr.
- FpUser 5y ago
  Thanks for mentioning the site. I just checked his HR Moon. Incredible.
- MisterTea 5y ago
  Thank you for pointing this out. After reading the opening line of "Thierry Legault pointed his camera up at the night sky..." I thought to myself "Man, that must be some camera." Turns out he very much does this professionally and a telescope is also involved.
  - jcims 5y ago
    Some details on his equipment here: http://www.astrophoto.fr/info.html http://www.astrophoto.fr/info.html. For reference, the first tube and mount he lists: Celestron C14 Edge HD - The telescope 'tube' alone (aka OTA) ~$8k USD Takahashi EM400 - Equatorial mount, ~$9kUSD This doesn't include any additional optics, filters, cameras, etc. Solar imaging is technically challenging and gets ridiculously expensive very quickly because of the contrast benefits of extremely narrowband filtering. He references using a Takahashi FSQ-106 (~$7k), Coronado double stack (also ~$7k) and a .5 angstrom Daystar filter (~$4k). Massive massive investment in equipment. Hard to say if he has everything he lists but easily $100k total, probably closer to $200k. I would hazard that if you tried to start today, you couldn't find any of the above in stock. You're going to be scrounging the used market (which is fortunately quite active) and/or waiting 2-3 years for order fulfillment. I started into this hobby last fall and it is quite frustrating just getting your hands on what you want.
throw0101a 5y ago
If anyone wants a regular dose of astrophotography see Astronomy Picture of the Day: * https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html An RSS feed is available.
nayuki 5y ago
https://xkcd.com/2463/ https://xkcd.com/2463/
playcache 5y ago
Reminds me a little of this beauty (keep watching until the end) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M
DonHopkins 5y ago
Jaw-dropping is an understatement -- that's a stunning composition. How did he convince the moon and space station to perfectly pose together and the sun to light them so sharply like that? I've never seen a photo that reveals the roughness of the moon in profile like the high contrast craters and mountains along the edge.
- deltarholamda 5y ago
  > How did he convince the moon and space station to perfectly pose together The negotiations were tense, but in the end, the Space Station agreed to stop calling the Moon "crater face," and the Moon agreed to stop talking about Flat Earth Theory.
web007 5y ago
I read the title and was surprised to find the article isn't about AJamesMcCarthy - he has an amazing ISS-moon transit picture from a few months back. Turns out he (of course) saw this one, and thinks it's better than his own: https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1496191228802924544 https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/149619122880292454...
- jcims 5y ago
  Huge fan of him as well. Extremely creative, eg. this exaggerated height image of the moon - https://www.instagram.com/p/CVvktGkP8sL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CVvktGkP8sL/
npteljes 5y ago
Link to the original tweet by the photographer: https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/1495140290553856001 https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/149514029055385600... (alternatively https://nitter.net/thierrylegault/status/1495140290553856001 https://nitter.net/thierrylegault/status/1495140290553856001)
belter 5y ago
The photo is amazing. This one from the same author, with a Solar crossing and the Shuttle Atlantis getting close to the ISS, is stunning... http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_atlantis_2010.jpg http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_atlantis_2010.jpg "ISS distance to observer: 391 km. Speed in orbit: 7.4km/s (26500 km/h or 16500 mph)."
gadders 5y ago
>> "I did it, so it can be done," Legault replied. "Anyway, will a million dollar racket will (sic) make you defeat Federer or Nadal?" My wife is a not-bad-for-an-amateur photographer of family events etc and any time she takes a good photo people ask "What camera did you use?" I wonder if people used to go up to Shakespeare and say "Great play. What quill did you use?" Not that I'm comparing my wife to Shakespeare, but I could thrash around with an expensive DSLR for ages and not get a photo as good as a pro with an iphone 7. It's not the camera that makes a good photo.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I had the reverse experience... I borrowed a friends super fancy camera, and used it on all the 'auto' modes, and it gave amazing results, despite me having no real photography skill.
  - gadders 5y ago
    The camera will make the picture bright, in focus etc but it won't help you with composition and capturing the right moment.
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      Oh but it does... The 'burst' ability lets me take 50 photos in a few seconds and choose the best. And the high res sensor lets me crop afterwards to get much improved composition. No skill required.
      - gadders 5y ago
        And knowing how to crop the shot for the best composition?
- mirkules 5y ago
  I would like to know the camera too, because he takes the shot at 1/6000. What kind of camera lets in enough light at that shutter speed in the night sky to get that kind of photo at an apparently-low ISO (not a lot of grain apparent in the photo)?
nullc 5y ago
Nice thing about the moon and ISS is that there are lots of opportunities to photograph them. To get an actual transit like that you may have to travel some distance or wait a long time: https://transit-finder.com/ https://transit-finder.com/ Obligatory "here is the moon photo I took two days ago": https://litter.catbox.moe/5zj2s5.jpg https://litter.catbox.moe/5zj2s5.jpg
fnsa 5y ago
If anyone would like to buy the print: https://www.galleryastro.fr/-/galleries/auteurs/thierry-legault/-/medias/c1c8f571-e7b6-497b-ac4b-b7f12e2a3287-transit-lunaire https://www.galleryastro.fr/-/galleries/auteurs/thierry-lega... Just ordered one for my kids!
globular-toast 5y ago
How long until we can photograph the moon landings from Earth?
gattr 5y ago
In a similar vein, a high-res ISS image by Alessandro Bianconi showing a damaged radiator: https://www.astrobin.com/375799/?nc=all https://www.astrobin.com/375799/?nc=all (Taken with a 14" telescope. Good "astronomical seeing" conditions and necessary post-processing notwithstanding, the smallest resolvable details depend linearly on telescope's aperture (i.e., the primary optical element's diameter).) EDIT: I also like this animation a lot, ISS crossing the sky (9.25" telescope): https://astropolis.pl/topic/79691-przelot-iss-z-ogniskowej-2350-mm/ https://astropolis.pl/topic/79691-przelot-iss-z-ogniskowej-2...

209 points by monkeydust 5y ago

That is indeed a stunning photo. Especially considering that the ISS orbits at around 400km and the moon at ~380,000km. It looks like it would be in a dangerously low orbit around the moon.

seba_dos1 5y ago
Yeah, it all looks kinda Little Prince-esque.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  The "Tiny Planet" / "Little Planet" effect! https://wiki.panotools.org/Unusual_remappings https://wiki.panotools.org/Unusual_remappings >Little planet >Fisheye little planet remapping result © Erik Krause >Stereographic little planet remapping result © Erik Krause This is a remapping already used by Helmut Dersch as a thumbnail for his virtual Marburg tour on [2], where he remapped an equirectangular full spherical panorama to a 360 degree fisheye image with the nadir in the center and the zenith at the circle border. This is the same projection as used in the first example. >Nowadays most GUI front-ends feature stereographic and fisheye output projection directly. Stereographic is far better for Little Planets since the outer regions are less compressed and hence keep their natural proportions. The stereographic example here has a smaller Field of View (250°) although the apparent size of the planet is approximately the same like the fisheye one. >Some Panorama Viewers like f.e. KRPano or DevalVR also feature stereographic projection or even "Little Planet" directly. How to create high resolution (hi-res) "Tiny Planet" images with your drone and DJI Go 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATZmiKKaMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATZmiKKaMw Dyson Sphere Project seems to distort and exaggerate the field of view to produce that same effect. Or maybe it's just that its planets are actually tiny! But you feel quite gigantic walking around them. GIANT ROBOT; SMALL PLANET | #1 | Dyson Sphere Program | Lets Play/Guide/Walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTU97bAMM4&t=2m28s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tTU97bAMM4&t=2m28s Another interesting perspective: What If The Moon Were As Close As The ISS? (VIDEO) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/moon-as-close-as-iss-video_n_4124338 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/moon-as-close-as-iss-video_n_... The nice green field, blue sky, and fluffy clouds in the video would probably be a smoking bubbling magma hell-scape thanks to the intense tidal forces, though.

potamic 5y ago

It's cool. But much clickbait with the title?

lmilcin 5y ago
No, the title is not a clickbait. This is best photo of ISS transiting Moon I have seen, by a large margin.
- nuccy 5y ago
  Indeed. There are also pretty stunning transits of the Sun (with Canadarm and Crew Dragon resolved) on the photographer's website [1]. But Moon transits are likely much more challenging since it is much fainter as a background than the Sun. 1. http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_transits_june2020.html http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_transits_june2020.html
  - mikeInAlaska 5y ago
    I would guess the Moon is actually much brighter once you filter the Sun to safe levels.
monkeydust 5y ago
OP here - think I followed guidelines here. "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
What definition of clickbait are you using here? In my head, clickbait is still "You won't BELIEVE this ONE CLEVER TRICK! Astrophotographers HATE him!", or something like that. I'm guessing you don't like the emotional wording in "jaw-dropping"?

amne 5y ago

Anyone know what are the chances of this happening again in the future? Except the "take the photo" part. I'm talking about: - it's night - clear sky - right geo coordinates - ISS passing between the moon and said right geo coordinates Just thinking of these and then add on top that you have 0.5s to take the photo. This was truly a "right moment, right place, right person" kind of thing.

lmilcin 5y ago
There is a lot of occasions for observations if you are into it. This photo is not a happy accident, though. It took careful preparation. Let's see... it looks that at a distance of 400km we can see features of size roughly 1m (or even better). This points to resolution of 0.01 arcsecond which is fenomenal for an amateur setup.
- gliptic 5y ago
  That's not quite right. 1 meter at 400 km distance is ~0.51 arcseconds, which is on the edge of doable with good seeing. 0.01 arcseconds would never be possible within the atmosphere.
  - jcims 5y ago
    The most depressing statistic here (for me anyway) is that to directly image the nearest exoplanet at 1km per pixel we're going to need a telescope with ~.000000005 arcseconds of resolution. Someone check my math but that would be like imaging the ISS at the nanometer scale from the surface of the earth.
    - rocqua 5y ago
      Now compute what kind of virtual aperture size it takes to get this resolution without being diffraction limited. Edit: I did it, about 25000km (for light with a wavelength of 500nm), or twice the radius of the earth. That actually suggests it could be doable with a constellation of telescopes in high orbit.

jcims 5y ago

Thierry Legault does some of the best solar system astrophotography I'm aware of (or at least the stuff I'm most interested in). Many amazing images of ISS and other spacecraft, images of the surface of the sun, lunar images, lunar occultation of other planets, etc etc. This is just another example of his excellent work. More examples here: http://www.astrophoto.fr/ http://www.astrophoto.fr/ Edit: That said there are some amazing amateur astrophotographers quietly going about their art. https://astrobin.com https://astrobin.com is their Flickr.

FpUser 5y ago
Thanks for mentioning the site. I just checked his HR Moon. Incredible.
MisterTea 5y ago
Thank you for pointing this out. After reading the opening line of "Thierry Legault pointed his camera up at the night sky..." I thought to myself "Man, that must be some camera." Turns out he very much does this professionally and a telescope is also involved.
- jcims 5y ago
  Some details on his equipment here: http://www.astrophoto.fr/info.html http://www.astrophoto.fr/info.html. For reference, the first tube and mount he lists: Celestron C14 Edge HD - The telescope 'tube' alone (aka OTA) ~$8k USD Takahashi EM400 - Equatorial mount, ~$9kUSD This doesn't include any additional optics, filters, cameras, etc. Solar imaging is technically challenging and gets ridiculously expensive very quickly because of the contrast benefits of extremely narrowband filtering. He references using a Takahashi FSQ-106 (~$7k), Coronado double stack (also ~$7k) and a .5 angstrom Daystar filter (~$4k). Massive massive investment in equipment. Hard to say if he has everything he lists but easily $100k total, probably closer to $200k. I would hazard that if you tried to start today, you couldn't find any of the above in stock. You're going to be scrounging the used market (which is fortunately quite active) and/or waiting 2-3 years for order fulfillment. I started into this hobby last fall and it is quite frustrating just getting your hands on what you want.

throw0101a 5y ago

If anyone wants a regular dose of astrophotography see Astronomy Picture of the Day: * https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html An RSS feed is available.

nayuki 5y ago

https://xkcd.com/2463/ https://xkcd.com/2463/

playcache 5y ago

Reminds me a little of this beauty (keep watching until the end) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjNssEVlB6M

DonHopkins 5y ago

Jaw-dropping is an understatement -- that's a stunning composition. How did he convince the moon and space station to perfectly pose together and the sun to light them so sharply like that? I've never seen a photo that reveals the roughness of the moon in profile like the high contrast craters and mountains along the edge.

deltarholamda 5y ago
> How did he convince the moon and space station to perfectly pose together The negotiations were tense, but in the end, the Space Station agreed to stop calling the Moon "crater face," and the Moon agreed to stop talking about Flat Earth Theory.

web007 5y ago

I read the title and was surprised to find the article isn't about AJamesMcCarthy - he has an amazing ISS-moon transit picture from a few months back. Turns out he (of course) saw this one, and thinks it's better than his own: https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1496191228802924544 https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/149619122880292454...

jcims 5y ago
Huge fan of him as well. Extremely creative, eg. this exaggerated height image of the moon - https://www.instagram.com/p/CVvktGkP8sL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CVvktGkP8sL/

npteljes 5y ago

Link to the original tweet by the photographer: https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/1495140290553856001 https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/149514029055385600... (alternatively https://nitter.net/thierrylegault/status/1495140290553856001 https://nitter.net/thierrylegault/status/1495140290553856001)

belter 5y ago

The photo is amazing. This one from the same author, with a Solar crossing and the Shuttle Atlantis getting close to the ISS, is stunning... http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_atlantis_2010.jpg http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_atlantis_2010.jpg "ISS distance to observer: 391 km. Speed in orbit: 7.4km/s (26500 km/h or 16500 mph)."

gadders 5y ago

>> "I did it, so it can be done," Legault replied. "Anyway, will a million dollar racket will (sic) make you defeat Federer or Nadal?" My wife is a not-bad-for-an-amateur photographer of family events etc and any time she takes a good photo people ask "What camera did you use?" I wonder if people used to go up to Shakespeare and say "Great play. What quill did you use?" Not that I'm comparing my wife to Shakespeare, but I could thrash around with an expensive DSLR for ages and not get a photo as good as a pro with an iphone 7. It's not the camera that makes a good photo.

londons_explore 5y ago
I had the reverse experience... I borrowed a friends super fancy camera, and used it on all the 'auto' modes, and it gave amazing results, despite me having no real photography skill.
- gadders 5y ago
  The camera will make the picture bright, in focus etc but it won't help you with composition and capturing the right moment.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Oh but it does... The 'burst' ability lets me take 50 photos in a few seconds and choose the best. And the high res sensor lets me crop afterwards to get much improved composition. No skill required.
    - gadders 5y ago
      And knowing how to crop the shot for the best composition?
mirkules 5y ago
I would like to know the camera too, because he takes the shot at 1/6000. What kind of camera lets in enough light at that shutter speed in the night sky to get that kind of photo at an apparently-low ISO (not a lot of grain apparent in the photo)?

nullc 5y ago

Nice thing about the moon and ISS is that there are lots of opportunities to photograph them. To get an actual transit like that you may have to travel some distance or wait a long time: https://transit-finder.com/ https://transit-finder.com/ Obligatory "here is the moon photo I took two days ago": https://litter.catbox.moe/5zj2s5.jpg https://litter.catbox.moe/5zj2s5.jpg

fnsa 5y ago

If anyone would like to buy the print: https://www.galleryastro.fr/-/galleries/auteurs/thierry-legault/-/medias/c1c8f571-e7b6-497b-ac4b-b7f12e2a3287-transit-lunaire https://www.galleryastro.fr/-/galleries/auteurs/thierry-lega... Just ordered one for my kids!

globular-toast 5y ago

How long until we can photograph the moon landings from Earth?

gattr 5y ago

In a similar vein, a high-res ISS image by Alessandro Bianconi showing a damaged radiator: https://www.astrobin.com/375799/?nc=all https://www.astrobin.com/375799/?nc=all (Taken with a 14" telescope. Good "astronomical seeing" conditions and necessary post-processing notwithstanding, the smallest resolvable details depend linearly on telescope's aperture (i.e., the primary optical element's diameter).) EDIT: I also like this animation a lot, ISS crossing the sky (9.25" telescope): https://astropolis.pl/topic/79691-przelot-iss-z-ogniskowej-2350-mm/ https://astropolis.pl/topic/79691-przelot-iss-z-ogniskowej-2...