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Observing a total solar eclipse is an amazing experience, but observing it from orbit would be truly spectacular. The ISS astronauts could potentially have an opportunity in 2024, but will the ground track of the ISS cross the eclipse path at the right time?

enter image description here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_April_8,_2024

Edit: I made an error assuming the ground tracks of the ISS and eclipse need to coincide. The ground track of the ISS is projected along the Earth’s radius, while the eclipse ground track is projected along the Sun’s (and the Moon’s) radius. Due to the ISS altitude, these do not coincide except over the subsolar point.

enter image description here

Edit: To clarify, I mean observe the eclipse from within the umbra:

enter image description here

https://www.nationalgeographic.com

As opposed to outside the umbra:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISS-52_Eclipse_2017_Umbra_Viewed_from_Space_(4).jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISS-52_Eclipse_2017_Umbra_Viewed_from_Space_(4).jpg

Woody
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  • Related, not duplicate: https://space.stackexchange.com/a/51196/6944 – Organic Marble Jan 09 '24 at 20:16
  • Related, not duplicate https://space.stackexchange.com/q/22376/6944 – Organic Marble Jan 09 '24 at 22:03
  • Fred Espenak's pages for this eclipse: https://eclipsewise.com/solar/SEprime/2001-2100/SE2024Apr08Tprime.html & https://eclipsewise.com/2024/2024.html – PM 2Ring Jan 10 '24 at 04:00
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    It's a bit tricky to predict exactly what the ISS will see because the JPL trajectory data is only valid for 4 weeks into the future (and even that's not very accurate after the first few days). https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/api/horizons.api?format=text&MAKE_EPHEM=NO&COMMAND=-125544 – PM 2Ring Jan 10 '24 at 04:03
  • @PM2Ring ... good to know. The totality patch is (at most) 200km wide, which the ISS traverses in 26 seconds – Woody Jan 10 '24 at 05:41
  • Can we clarify if the question is seeing the moon's shadow on the Earth from the ISS or seeing the eclipse itself from the ISS? If the latter, are there even windows on that side of the station through which they could look in the right direction? – phil1008 Jan 10 '24 at 09:41
  • Quick, flip the station over so we can see the eclipse! – Darth Pseudonym Jan 10 '24 at 21:17
  • I got dibs on the cupola ! – Woody Jan 10 '24 at 22:16
  • A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that the ISS ground track will be at most 7 km outside the full-eclipse track. Not negligible. – Ludo Jan 15 '24 at 09:36

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