Did anybody on the ISS photograph this partial eclipse? How long did it last? How did they safely photograph it?

Question

Thanks to @gerrit's comment I have "irrefutable photographic circumstantial evidence" that the ISS (probably) passed through the penumbra of a partial solar eclipse. I know this is true because it is on the internet.

Quartz.com: The International Space Station just pulled off the photobomb of a lifetime

My evidence is the purple line I drew in the cropped bit of the image shown below.

The International Space Station, with a crew of six onboard, is seen in silhouette as it transits the Sun at roughly five miles per second during a partial solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017 near Banner, Wyoming.

Captured by NASA photographer Joel Kowsky while looking up from Banner, Wyoming, perfectly timed images show a tiny ISS passing in front of the sun.

Seriously though, did anybody on the ISS see and/or photograph this partial eclipse? If so, how long did the eclipse last for them, and how did they manage to safely photograph the Sun?

Organic Marble · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-02T01:54:27.627

4

Partial answer covering two of the three questions in the post.

"did anybody on the ISS see and/or photograph this partial eclipse?"

Solar Eclipse Viewing: The crew removed scratch panes from Cupola windows #4 and #6 and cleaned the window #3 scratch pane. The crew then took both HD video and still images of the moon’s umbra on Earth from the Cupola. They also obtained images of both the sun and the moon. In addition, the P1 Lower Outboard External High Definition Camera (EHDC) was used to capture HD video of the moon’s umbra on Earth.

ISS Daily Status Report 8/21/2017

This photo was also included in my answer to an old question of yours here: Is this the only eclipse where Moon's shadow on the Earth (umbra) has been photographed by a person in space?¹

"how long did the eclipse last for them"

There is a great deal of information available here at ISS Observations The ISS passed through the penumbra three times. Only on the second pass could the crew see the Moon's umbra on the Earth's surface. They did not see a total eclipse on any of the passes because the ISS never passed through the umbra.

1st pass duration: ~14 minutes
2nd pass duration: ~18 minutes
3rd pass duration: ~20 minutes

(graphic showing 1st pass - graphics for other passes available at source)

Additional sources

How ISS astronauts saw the eclipse

¹ Your comment on my answer there could serve as a partial answer to this question. An additional comment from you on my answer there links to three more images taken during this event and tweeted by Komrade. A third comment from you on my answer there links to video tweeted by Don Pettit.

edited Apr 02 '21 at 01:54

answered Apr 02 '21 at 01:21

Organic Marble

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These are photos of the shadow on Earth but the "real" eclipse action is happening in the opposite direction, up in the sky like this which is why I enquired as to how they safely photograph it. Were any photographs taken of the eclipse itself from the ISS, perhaps through the "zenith facing window" (that I don't believe in)? Does the ISS have zenith-facing windows? and Is this window zenith-facing? (ISS docked Soyuz) If so, how directly? and – uhoh Apr 02 '21 at 06:40
Were there any STS missions that included maneuvers that might have photographed ISS's top side? Or were there any automatic cameras that can look at the Sun without damage? How are cameras arranged and used to monitor activities outside the ISS? and Are there industry standards or specs for image sensor resistance to damage from intense light? Here for example is a Buzz Aldrin eclipse shot from space – uhoh Apr 02 '21 at 06:42
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The quote says ". They also obtained images of both the sun and the moon." But I didn't find any. Nice list of questions. The P1LOOB camera mentioned in the quote is discussed in one of them. What's the relevance of the question about flyarounds? – Organic Marble Apr 02 '21 at 11:06
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Just a couple of months ago NASA finally finished destroying spaceflight.nasa.gov which would have been the place to find the pictures. The "replacement" images.nasa.gov has only a primitive search capability. – Organic Marble Apr 02 '21 at 11:26
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I've gone holographic for the next few days; only a low resolution reconstruction of me is active on the site (deadlines loom large in the "real world"). Most of the questions linked in my comments above relate to the possible existence of a "zenith-facing" or "zenith-viewing" window. If astronauts were going to see the eclipse I think that they would have to look somewhat up (zenith hemisphere), because of the way that the ISS orbit and the path of eclipse maximum intersect. I don't think that the cupola could provide a view of the Sun with any of it's limb covered by the Moon. – uhoh Apr 02 '21 at 18:02
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So I'm hoping that someone put a solar filter or a very small aperture on one of the very big, long focal length lenses with the active vibration cancelation in it and found one of the "zenith facing" windows (or a capsule?) and snapped a photo of the partially eclipsed Sun. If not, then the only way would be to use one of the exterior cameras. – uhoh Apr 02 '21 at 18:05
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@uhoh best wishes with the deadlines! – Organic Marble Apr 02 '21 at 18:07
However it seems that pressure to meet deadlines does not overcome pressure to post new questions; Has an ISS astronaut ever gone into a docked capsule to take a photo out one of its windows? and Has the ISS ever “flown upside down”? Has the cupola ever “looked up”? have suddenly appeared – uhoh Apr 03 '21 at 03:06
I've added a bounty, please feel free to partake! – uhoh Apr 13 '21 at 00:51

Did anybody on the ISS photograph this partial eclipse? How long did it last? How did they safely photograph it?

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