2010 ISS Calendar Poster

The International Space Station (ISS) and the Moon are the two largest objects in orbit around the Earth today. This image was taken with a telescope and Canon 20D (a standard digital SLR camera) about 3 miles east of Mt Hamilton on the side of Ca-130 Monday February 2 at 7:07:40PM. The transit was visible only along a 3 mile wide strip oriented NNW to SSE. The transit across the lit part of the moon lasted 0.25s (the transit across the lit and dark part of the moon lasted 0.49s). The ISS and the moon were at a distance of 389Km and 368586Km with an angular size of 47 arc-seconds and 32 arc-minutes respectively. The ISS was moving at an angular speed of about 1 degree per second, which required a very short exposure time (one 3200th of a second) to get both objects sharp. - E. Zbinden