Martin snaps spacewalk astronaut

Martin Lewis, from St Albans, Herts, produced this image using an ordinary webcam coupled to one of his home-made telescopes, an 8¾-inch reflector.

Martin has photographed the ISS on a number of occasions, always something of a feat considering the speed at which it moves across the night sky.

This week it has appeared especially bright, rivalling Venus, because the space shuttle Discovery is attached on its final mission.

You can clearly see the shape of Discovery in the middle of Martin's photo of the ISS, taken on Wednesday 2 March at 18.48 UT (6.48pm UK time). At the end of a robotic arm called Canadarm is a bright blob which Martin believes is NASA astronaut Steve Bowen.

Steve was in the middle of a lengthy spacewalk at the time the picture was taken. Martin has identified various parts of the orbiting ensemble, 350 km (217 miles) above the Earth.

Martin, a software engineer by profession, said: "The image was taken after rushing home from work to get the scope cooling in time for the pass.

"I took it through my homebuilt 8¾-inch reflector from my back garden in St Albans and the telescope was hand-guided to follow the path of the ISS as it rose in the west and passed overhead.

"The camera used was a monochrome, 640x480-pixel webcam running at 60 frames per second and I took 4,700 images combining the best 30 or so to produce the image. The astronauts were 3hr 30min into a 6hr 30min EVA at the time I took my shot and part of this EVA involved Steve Bowen riding the Shuttle’s Canadarm."