![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2017\/10\/is_it_a_bird\/17188893-1-eng-GB\/Is_it_a_bird_small.jpg\")
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\nTaking an image of the International Space Station as it passes in front of the Sun<\/a>, Moon<\/a> or planets<\/a> is a popular pastime for astrophotographers. It requires planning, patience and a measure of luck. The camera must be set up at the right time in the right place to capture the Space Station as it flies past at 28 800 km\/h. At such speeds the photographer has only seconds to capture the transit and if any clouds block the view it has to wait for another opportunity weeks later.\n<\/p>\n \nThis photograph was taken by the astronomy club at ESA\u2019s European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid in 2013. Although there were clear skies, a bird flew overhead in the 1.2 seconds it took the Station to pass in front of the Sun.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Station flies around Earth at around 400 km, allowing the astronomy club to calculate that the bird was flying 86 m from the camera lens. The difference in size and distance makes both the bird and the Space Station appear the same size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \nTaking an image of the International Space Station as it passes in front of the Sun<\/a>, Moon<\/a> or planets<\/a> is a popular pastime for astrophotographers. It requires planning, patience and a measure of luck. The camera must be set up at the right time in the right place to capture the Space Station as it flies past at 28 800 km\/h. At such speeds the photographer has only seconds to capture the transit and if any clouds block the view it has to wait for another opportunity weeks later.\n<\/p>\n \nThis photograph was taken by the astronomy club at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid in 2013. Although there were clear skies, a bird flew overhead in the 1.2 seconds it took the Station to pass in front of the Sun.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Station flies around Earth at around 400 km, allowing the astronomy club to calculate that the bird was flying 86 m from the camera lens. The difference in size and distance makes both the bird and the Space Station appear the same size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383924,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383923\/revisions\/383924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n