Jason Hatton, a keen amateur photographer in Holland, grabbed a couple of **great** pictures of the ISS and ATV overhead this morning! Click on 'Full story' to access hi-res versions and details (thanks, Jason!). -- Daniel

The first image shows the ISS. It was taken at 05:13 CET from Noordwijk, The Netherlands. Four minutes later, at 05:17 CET, came the view of ATV - both are seen as streaks in the time-lapse images. Both were taken with a Canon 350D; the exposure was 5 seconds. Jason wrote:

Although the weather has been rather poor the last few days, there was a brief break in the in the clouds this morning, which coincided with a visible pass of ATV & ISS. There were still some scattered clouds lit up with the glow from streetlights, which are visible in some parts of the pictures. The ISS appeared first at 05:13 local, very bright & yellowish in colour. ATV appeared out of eclipse a few minutes later (05:17). Although fainter than ISS, the ATV was initially relatively bright (comparable to bright stars in the sky), then rapidly faded. Also the difference in orbital altitude between ISS & ATV was quite apparent, with ATV moving noticeably faster across the sky. The photos are 5-sec time exposures with a 800ISO setting on a Canon 350D with a 28mm lens.

The ISS, ATV and STS-123 will be visible in early morning across Europe over the next few days, so it is a good chance for the general public to observe the traffic flow to the ISS. Predictions of the visibility of each spacecraft for different locations for all spacecraft can be found on the Heavens Above website. To get predictions & skycharts showing the track of the spacecraft across the sky, it is necessary to enter the location from the menu near the top of the page.

Thanks, Jason!

(Click on images below for hi-res...) 

 ISS

 ATV