This was a first for me. I found out through ISS Transit Finder that the ISS was going to do a transit of the moon as seen from my favorite dark site on the night of Halloween. After passing out all the candy I packed my gear and drove 1.5hrs and setup well in advance. As the time grew closer and closer, within a minute or two, I grew more nervous thinking I had made a huge mistake. I was expecting to see the bright ISS appear on the horizon and observe it make its way to the moon minutes before the event, but saw nothing. I almost didn't press the record button but thankfully did seconds before the transit. It's not the greatest shot, in fact I didn't really get any clear frames of the ISS, most are slightly blurry and since it wasn't illuminated it's only a silhouette against the moon. However, it was a great experience, mostly in my amazement that we are able to predict these events that will happen on an exact spot on earth at future time down to the fraction of a second.
The first image is a montage of all the frames that were captured, the second image is an animation, and the third is the transit prediction (all credit goes to
ISS Transit Finder).
Next time I will prepare better on what shutter speed, gain, and focal length are appropriate to do a better capture.
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