Astro Photographer Andrew McCarthy has captured the moment the International Space Nation (ISS) passed in front of the moon.
Both the Moon and the International Space Station have been captured while being caught in a rather overpowering sunbeam.
McCarthy shared the video of the space station passing by on his Instagram handle @cosmic_background. While describing the shot, McCarthy stated in the caption of the video, “This was a transit captured from my backyard this morning, and a difficult shot to capture since the moon was practically invisible against the glare of the sun.”
The video shows the tiny space station brush past the moon in blazing fast speed, almost looking like an X-Wing fighter from the popular movie franchise Star Wars. And in case you thought you barely got to see the space station go, this video was actually slowed down.
McCarthy further explained, “The transit against the lit portion of the moon lasted just a few hundredths of a second, shown here in a video slowed down roughly 6x.” basically this video was slowed down six times to help you spot the ISS, which can only make one think how fast the ISS would be moving.
The International Space Station is hovering in Earth’s orbit at a speed of 7.66 km/s which is around 27,600 kilometres per hour.
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