Ports of Call

The Space Shuttle Discovery separated from the International Space Station today, about 400 kms above the Earth’s surface. Standing by the bank of the river Shannon,  a thin sliver of new moon and the planet Venus were visible over the river after the sun had set. At 7.22 pm this evening, two ‘stars’ appeared to soar across the sky, close together, over the monastic site of Clonmacnoise. It was a wonderful sight, to see both the Shuttle and the Space Station – that most exotic of destinations – from the vantage point of a monastery that was once a port of call for the most learned and intrepid of explorers, 14 centuries earlier.

Here is a picture of the two crafts streaking past the same round tower (Temple Finghin – built in the twelfth century) – there is only a single trail since both craft are flying along the same path.

I had another camera rigged to take photos continuously – here is the resulting [and very short] time lapse movie of the ISS and Space Shuttle flying over Clonmacnoise monastic site on the bank of the river Shannon in Co. Offaly in Ireland.