We received a mail yesterday from Till Credner, at AlltheSky.com, who was up early on 19 March and captured some stunning images of ATV travelling in orbit across the pre-dawn sky followed a few minutes later by - what else? - the ISS (with the US Space Shuttle Endeavour docked). He then combined his images into a very cool animation, which he's kindly allowed us to re-post (thanks, Till!). Access more details and the full video after the jump... -- Daniel

Till wrote:

Now that the Jules Verne ATV is about 2000km in front of the ISS, observers have a good opportunity to watch the ATV racing across the sky about 4.5 min before the ISS (+ Space Shuttle) runs the same track. This morning, March 19th, a time-lapse movie of ATV and ISS was recorded from Hechingen in southern Germany. Please note that the accompanying composite image is somewhat misleading. The spacecraft were about 5 min apart and did not appear simultaneously in the field of view. The image is a composite of 11 + 11 exposures with a large gap in between. 540 frames were recorded in 2-second intervals and are shown with 30 frames per second. Therefore, the movie is 60xtimes faster than reality.

ATV comes first from upper right to lower left and than the brighter ISS in the same track. Below, in towards the South, is Hohenzollern Castle of the Swabian Alb, in Southern Germany.

 
Access full video (Windows Media) here
Access full video (Apple QT) here 
 

For more information and to access some of Till's other great work, access: http://www.allthesky.com