Shadow Chasing - Endeavour crosses the Sun

After yesterdays disappointment, the weather today was forecast to be worse, but I checked out a favourable spot anyway to try and image the ISS and Endeavour transit, predicted for this morning at 11.43 and 38 seconds. I've only got 3 attempts left to try and image Endeavour before it's pensioned-off, so I had to try and hope for better luck than we had yesterday.

When I arrived at my chosen site near Pulloxhill, Beds, I parked up in a convenient field ......and it started to rain. "What am I doing here?" I asked myself. As the wind was blowing the cloud along at a fair pace I thought I'd stick it out and hope for the best. Fortunately, 10 minutes before the transit started a big patch of blue blew across the sun and everything was looking good.

No other mishaps, and I started my 100 exposure sequence 10 seconds before the predicted start, at a rate of 5 fps, using my laptop on the car seat to get an accurate time fix.

Back home, I was delighted to have captured 3 images which are composited here. The other dot on the sun is the sunspot AR 1216. The enlargements show some detail - one of the sets of solar panels is very clear, though I'm not 100% sure which bit is Endeavour. I suspect it's the dark blob near the centre.

Duration of transit only 0.57 secs. Shadow ground speed 7.5 km/s

Diameter of ISS = approx 65.4 arc seconds

In a field somewhere, with my DSLR and 420mm lens