South African Photographer Mitchell Krog on Sunday 30th of August 2009 captured the International Space Station (ISS) flying across the night skies of Southern Africa. Mitchell, an award-winning photographer and specialist in Astro-Photography had selected his location for the shoot several days beforehand and planned things well in advance. At 6:51pm, a time specified by the Johannesburg Planetarium, the ISS appeared as a bright yellow star low on the horizon and in a matter of a minute was already directly overhead and out of the frame. Through his past experiences with photographing astronomical events Mitchell had everything in place to pull of the image below which shows the International Space Station like a shooting star across the sky. Says Mitchell, the Space station was moving at an incredible speed and those people who did not take the time of viewing this event seriously would have missed it had they come outside a minute later. It moved across the sky from horizon to horizon in under 2 minutes. The conditions for this particular glimpse of the ISS were nothing short of perfect, the moon was currently waxing around a half moon phase giving just enough light to illuminate the foreground. The Space Station moved from the horizon in the S-S-W to the horizon in the N-E in approximately 2 minutes.
The International Space Station Fleeted Across the South African Night Skies on The 30th of August 2009 at 6:51pm. From Mitchell Krog's AstroPhotography Portfolio. (Copyright Mitchell Krog - All Rights Reserved)
Marnus says:
Hi there,
perhaps you know the answer to my question.
I saw something fitting the descriptions of the ISS, flying over East London (on the south east coast of South Africa) on 18 Feb 2010 at approximately between 20:05 and 20:08 (about these datas I am very sure because I have a video clip of it with this date and a time of 20:07 stamped on that digital record). I think the flight-direction might have been roughly south-east across the horizen. To my understanding, it appeared as if the object was in the earth’s atmosphere, but it probably was not. It looked brighter than the brightest star in the sky and moved quite fast, definately not an aeroplane. It was very beautiful and intriguing.
Could someone perhaps relate whether the ISS or other similar kind of object was indeed crossing the night-sky of SA on this date / time?
Thank you!
30th August 2009 at 12:03 pm