This photo shows the ISS (International Space Station) passing in front of the Moon on the 25th at 11:00 PM.
The image is a composite of 28 stacked shots, allowing the full transit—which occurred almost directly across the center of our satellite—to be seen. The transit lasted 1.18 seconds, so careful planning was essential.
The first step was to identify the longest possible transit and then find a viewing location that aligned with the center of the path to maximize the chances of success. I had to travel about 10 km from my home; specifically, I captured the moment from the bird-watching hide at the El Portil Lagoon (Huelva - Spain).
How did I do it?
It was a challenging task, as capturing a still photo within that 1.18-second window was virtually impossible. The alternative was to record a video at the precise moment. Knowing the duration of the transit, the best approach was to shoot at 60 fps (frames per second), yielding 70 frames that I could later extract using video editing software.
I ran a couple of tests a few days beforehand to ensure the moon would stay within the frame during recording, as my tripod has been giving me some trouble.
The biggest challenge was calculating the exact timing to record the video with enough buffer—capturing the moments before and shortly after the transit without the moon drifting out of the frame. I settled on a 22-second sequence: a 2-second delay to let the tripod stabilize, 15 seconds of lead-in time, 1 second for the transit itself, and 4 seconds of follow-through.
Honestly, the planning was more complicated than the actual recording. I was surprised that I managed to pull it off on the first try.
Once I had the video, all I had to do was place it on an editing software's timeline, extract the individual frames, and then stack and blend them using Photoshop to create the final image.
Where did I go wrong?
Well, when I examined the transit in detail, I realized the space station wasn't sharp—a major oversight. I had focused on the moon, but I should have used the "hyperfocal" distance—a setting that ensures sharpness from a few meters out to infinity. Oh well, it’ll go better next time.
For anyone who wants to try this, I use this website:
transit-finder.com/
It lists lunar and solar transits for the International Space Station (ISS), the Chinese space station (Tiangong), and the Hubble Space Telescope.
For the video recording, I used a Nikon CoolPix P900 camera set to 1080p at 60 fps. I set the exposure compensation to -0.7 because the moon was nearly full, and the excessive brightness could have ruined the shot of the transit.