Video of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station Orbiting Over Naperville

When I learned earlier this week the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station could be seen flying overhead here in Naperville, I took both my curiosity and video camera outside around 9:31 PM on Tuesday evening to see what I might capture. The result amazed me in how well you could see the two star-like lights moving rapidly through the skies. In addition, I was able to capture an excellent view of the planet Venus alongside the moon. Click below to see my edited footage which is now on You Tube.

Though it’s tough to get a feel for exactly how fast both were moving in the compressed video (dv version looks much better), I can say from the time I first saw both lights moving through the sky from the far west it only took a couple of minutes for them to disappear far into the east. Even more, I couldn’t believe who well Venus showed up as I zoomed as far as I could toward the crescent moon. For those wondering, I was using a Canon ZR-85 miniDV camera… nothing special but the result wasn’t too bad.