How do you photograph an object in space that is 400 kilometres away, travels at 7.66 kilometres per second and is in the right spot for less than a second?
Wait eight years, position yourself in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time, and hope for clear weather.
For Geraldton photographer, Ken Lawson, the patience and preparation paid off when he captured this photo of the International Space Station passing the surface of the moon last week.
"It doesn't happen very often so you need all the elements to combine together to get it in the right position," Mr Lawson said.
"I got an alert from a website called CalSky … that it was going to happen and the path was going to be right in the middle of Geraldton.
"You need to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and pray to the gods that everything goes right and you get the shot.
"I got to tick that off my bucket list — it's a bucket list shot.
"It's so fleeting and to be able to capture that in time for ever — that is pretty amazing."
Capturing the shot
The International Space Station was launched in 1998 and is the biggest human-made structure in space. It took on its first crew in November 2000 and has been continuously inhabited since.
The station circles the earth every 92 minutes, at a speed of about 28,000 kilometres an hour, meaning it orbits the earth about 15 times a day.
Despite its regular passing, photographing the station in front of the moon, in the right light, and in the right spot, took Mr Lawson eight years to perfect.
He took the photo using a Canon 5D digital camera on a manual eight-inch Dobsonian telescope.
Mr Lawson said, despite waiting years for the right moment, capturing the shot of the station was touch-and-go for a while.
"It was going to be cloudy before and after, and I was stressing watching the weather the whole time, but thankfully the weather was perfect," he said.
Hooked on stars since childhood
Mr Lawson has been hooked on night skies since he first witnessed Saturn through a telescope as an eight-year-old.
"I looked through this wobbly light telescope and I got to see the rings of Saturn and I've been hooked ever since," he said.
"It's so interesting. Everyone's amazed and interested in the night sky. So to be able to share that wonderment with everybody, it just gives me a good feeling in the heart."
Mr Lawson is a self-taught astrophotographer who shares his love of night skies with tourists and photographers on astro tours and astrophotography tours.
