Space Station caught crossing the Sun from Europa Point

Gibraltar astrophotographer Jordan Montado has photographed the International Space Station (ISS) passing in front of the Sun, in an event that lasted less than a second.

The image was taken from Europa Point at 16:27 on 22 September 2026. It shows the station's silhouette crossing the solar disc, frame by frame, with its solar panels clearly visible along with visible sunspots on the surface of the sun.

The ISS orbits about 400 km above the Earth at roughly 28,000 km/h. Seen against the Sun, it crosses the whole disc in under a second. Catching one takes careful planning: the crossing is only visible from a narrow strip of ground and rarely happens from Gibraltar due to our narrow land mass, so the photographer has to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment.

Mr Montado predicted the crossing using the online tool ISS Transit Finder, then set up at Europa Point with a Seestar S30 Pro smart telescope fitted with its solar filter. The video was captured at 20 frames per second, and the frames showing the station were combined into a single image.

"It's over before you can blink. You plan for days, set up and hope the weather holds. Thankfully it was a warm, clear day, everything went smoothly and for once there was no Levante to ruin the moment."

Mr Montado shares his images as GibNebula and runs free public Look Up Nights where residents can look through a telescope to observe the moon and other deep space objects. He stressed that no one should ever look at the Sun without proper solar filters.

His sights are now set on the total solar eclipse visible from Gibraltar on 2 August 2027.

More of his work is on Instagram at @gibnebula and at gibnebula.gi.