Great Views of the ISS and Shuttle From Earth and Space

By Nancy Atkinson - September 9, 2009 at 6:57 AM UTC | Missions
ISS_20090901_8pic1.jpg

[/caption] Paolo Beltrame from Italy sent us this amazing montage of images he took of space shuttle Discovery docked to the ISS on September 1, 2009. See the incredible details visible of the space station and docked shuttle! Paolo is with the Circolo AStrofili Talmassons (Amateur Astronomers Club in Talmassons, or CAST) who have an impressive observatory (

take a look at Paolo's website

). He took these selected images from a 2-minute movie taken with a TourcamPro webcam. As impressive as Paolo's astrophotos are, however, he says his real passion is viewing the night sky with the naked eye. His motto is "Lasciate che i fotoni vengano a me!" (Let the photons come to me!) See a close up of Paolo's best shot of the ISS/shuttle below, as well as images from other astrophotographers of Tuesday evening's pass of the shuttle and ISS as they flew in tandem after Discovery undocked from the station on Tuesday afternoon. There's also video from the shuttle's flyaround.

[caption id="attachment_39588" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="The ISS and shuttle on Sept. 1, 2009 at 3:03 UT. Credit: Paolo Beltrame"]

[/caption]

Below is Kevin Jung's image of the ISS and shuttle as they flew in tandem over Grand Rapids, Michigan: [caption id="attachment_39589" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Formation Flyover. Credit: Kevin Jung"]

[/caption]

Kevin made it home just in time to take this image, and he said the pair of spacecraft went just below Lyra, and you can make out some of the other things in the field, as well. Click the image to see more of Kevin's handiwork.

And here's my feeble attempt to image the tandem flyover from my yard in Illinois: [caption id="attachment_39590" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="ISS, shuttle and a star. Credit: N. Atkinson"]

[/caption] Can anyone guess what the star in the picture might be?

Finally, enjoy some video of the shuttle's fly-around of the ISS following undocking. This video just shows the the shuttle due to the lack of Ku band downlink availability. Video of the station from the orbiter was not available, but we'll post it here later if it becomes available.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com