Max Bittle Photography : New Hampshire Photographer : 618.727.0510

The International Space Station streaks through the dusk sky over a replica Mercury-Redstone rocket at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire on March 6, 2010.

I’ve been planning a shot like this in my head for literally months. The local space museum has this gigantic replica rocket out front and I’ve been wanting to incorporate it in a flyby picture. Timing has was a bit of a problem until a few nights back. The International Space Station flies overhead all the time, but getting the lighting right was key. Usually it’s pitch black out when you can best see the flybys and with that the top of the rocket wouldn’t be visible. So, I had to wait for a flyby either at sunrise or sunset. Since I’m not much of a morning person, sunset seemed like a better option. I’m hoping to try this out a few more time and see what else I can come up with.

I’ll preface this post by saying that I am a huge fan of all things space.

For the past few days the space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station have been orbiting the Earth separately since they undocked on Wednesday. Tonight they were visible for a short time here in New Hampshire. It was pretty neat to see both streaking across the sky. They looked like a couple of really bright planes and were only visible for a little more than a minute and a half. It was so cool.

In the picture the top streak is the space station and the lower is Atlantis, STS-129.

I am amazed by flight. No matter how often I fly, the thought of soaring through the sky awes me. Takeoff is my favorite. Feeling of those powerful engines thrusting you back into your seat and looking out the window and seeing the plane leave the ground. Ah….

My lovely gal Katie (pictured below) and I celebrated my 25th birthday today with a trip to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. We landed the Discovery Space Shuttle as well as a lunar module on the moon (with pitch, roll, and throttle). It was quite the sight!

For more exciting space pictures please click HERE