International Space Station Solar Transit

By Fritz Olenberger

Tuesday morning at 11:53 a.m. the International Space Station transited the sun in a 2.7 mile wide path that passed near Lake Casitas, California. I caught a video of this event on camera using a solar filter and a 600mm lens.  The actual transit time was only about 0.6 seconds.  The ISS was at an altitude of 288 miles, with nine men and two women on board.  In the composite photo, one-thirtieth of a second separates the ISS images.  Sunspots can also be seen in the image.

The ISS circles the globe roughly every 90 minutes, and is about the same size as a soccer field. It weighs 420 tons, about the same as 280 cars.