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And the space station jumped over the moon: not quite, but even cooler
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Remember the old nursery rhyme "hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,"in which the cow jumped over the moon? For centuries, people have been arguing about the hidden meaning of that little ditty, but now we have a reality even more amazing than the fantasy of a cow jumping over the moon.
Shown above is Ed Morana's picture of the International Space Station crossing the moon. Speaking of hidden material, the astronomer/photographer explained that at first, he didn't even know that he had captured this perfect image.
I traveled a few miles to get to the observing site in Livermore, CA. In the field, I did not see the ISS transit at all. It was only until I returned home and reviewed the video tape, that I noticed a very fast streak just catch the upper right corner of the field of view.
What equipment did he use? " Meade 10" F/10 LX200GPS telescope, No Focal Reducer, Watec 902H CCD Video Camera and KIWI OSD Video Time-inserter connected to a Garmin-18 LVC GPS," Morana noted on his web page.
If you'd like to try catching the space station transiting the sun, moon, or planets, Morana has a program you can install and use on your computer at home.
The ISS Transit Prediction program allows a user to generate an ISS Transit prediction for their specific location. This program requires the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Version 5.0 or better. Additional system requirements can be found here. This program is based on the software originally developed by Thomas Fly.
Morana also has a four-second video clip of the Nov. 10 transit. (Windows Media format). When you see how quickly the space station flies across the moon in the background, you'll understand the challenge of getting a photo like this.
Image: courtesy of Ed Morana, used with permission. Thanks, Ed!
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