I saw and photographed the fine pair from a small country graveyard. It was dark and creepy there. I set up my tripod on a narrow gritty road using my car to block some of the frigid wind. With my heart pounding in anticipation the pair emerged from behind the cemetery pines. I was amazed at how beautiful they were in formation! If only there was some space-age music in the background to set it off, I thought. Everything was so quiet. The Shuttle was a lot less bright than the ISS.

Photo details: Nikon Coolpix 4500, 60 seconds, ISO 200, f 2.8, 7.85 mm lens, noise reduction turned on

On Dec. 21st, the space shuttle flew over Germany. Eight minutes later the ISS followed. M. Wagner photographed both using a 10-inch telescope. Then he combined the images to create a side-by-side composite showing how both spacecraft look through backyard telescopes.

Photo details: 25cm Newtonian telescope, f=1300mm, Canon EOS 300D, 1600ASA, 1/1000s.

The picture does not do it justice. As my 10 year old son said, "That was so cool!" I wasn't sure we'd see both the ISS and the shuttle as separate units since they'd just separated maybe 15-20 minutes prior to flying over, but they were sure both there and very visible! They appeared to drift further apart as they flew over our heads.

Photo details: Canon 20D, 400ISO, 15s exposure, 17mm, f4 - taken ~ 5:30pm MST

STS 116 had separated from the ISS ~50 minutes prior to this shot. I anticipated them being further apart than they were. Had I known or had the time to switch, a 200mm lens would have faired better than the 50mm I used. Canon 30D, ISO 400, 50mm at F/2.0, crop of a 20 second image, non-tracking tripod mounting.

I rushed out with the camera when I saw that the ISS was passing over with the shuttle at about the time of undocking. During the first shot I took, I noticed a brief brightening as it went by--possibly one of the separation burns.

Photo details: Canon Rebel XTI

The space shuttle Discovery was 3 minutes ahead of the ISS. Undocking was yesterday, so these two manned artificial space objects and research facilities were hundreds of kilometers far from each other, but I caught it on one long exposure shot!

Photo details: Canon 400D, ISO200, 330s, f/3.5

It was really cool to see.

Photo details: Nikon D70 DSLR, ISO 200, 1 minute exposure for #1, 30 second exposure for #2.

The photos were taken from my rural driveway looking west towards Tomahawk Wisconsin (89W/45N) at 00:33 UT (6:33pm CST) on December 19th. The shuttle was in the lead followed by the ISS. They entered the Earth's shadow and faded just above Altair, which is the brightest star. Very lovely.

Photo details: 30 second exposures, Nikon CP 4300.