A photographer was able to compose the image just above, capturing frames where the International Space Station (ISS) appears in silhouette as it passes in front of the Sun.
Jamie Cooper, 52, noticed that the ISS was expected to appear above his home in Whilton, near Daventry, Northamptonshire, on 17 June. He captured this less-than-second ‘full transit’ event at 10:22 am local time using a telescope and a high-speed video camera pointed at the Sun.
Cooper, a professional photographer and aspiring amateur astronomer, says he was in the right place at the right time: “There’s a very narrow band, about three miles (4.8 kilometers) wide, where the space station and the sun are in a straight line. I checked the data three days ago and It wouldn’t have hit my house. I checked again the day before and saw it would be on my house. So I was lucky.”
As the space station passed over its home, it was about 400km away and was traveling at about 27,300km.
Cooper said the high-speed video camera captured 80 frames per second compared to the normal camera speed of 25. “It’s important to say that I use a special telescope with a filter, as you should never look at the sun without a filter – this can cause permanent blindness.”
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