International Space Station flies by the Moon

No, the International Space Station has not left Earth orbit and flown to the Moon. But you might think that when you first glance at these stunning new NASA photos of the outpost flying by our lunar neighbor.

The remarkable images were taken in Houston on Wednesday evening as the station orbited 243 miles above the planet. The science complex is the brightest man-made object in the night sky.

Equipment used by the NASA photographer operating from NASA's Johnson Space Center, was as follows: Nikon D3S, 600mm lens and 2x converter, Heavy Duty Bogen Tripod with sandbag and a trigger cable to minimize camera shake. The camera settings were as follows: 1/1600 @ f/8, ISO 2500 on High Continuous Burst.

The images below show single frames of the station to the upper left and the lower right of the Moon, plus multiple images combined into one composite image to show the progress of the station as it crossed the face of the Moon.

Photo credit: NASA

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