From April 2026 issue
Tianyao Yang carefully planned this composite shot of the Tiangong Space Station during the lunar eclipse of September 2025.
Captured in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China, at 12:57 am local time on September 8, 2025, this 22-frame sequence was shot on a Sony a1 with a 600mm lens and 2x teleconverter at 1/2000 sec, f/8, and ISO 1600. Credit: Tianyao Yang
The lunar eclipse of September 7/8, 2025 was not favorable for observers in the US or Europe, but was in good condition for viewers in Asia. Tianyao Yang took the opportunity to capture a silhouette of the Chinese space station Tiangong (or “Heavenly Palace”) as it crossed the Moon during the eclipse.
The International Space Station has been captured transiting across the Moon in Earth’s shadow before, most notably by astrophotographer Thierry Legault during the eclipse of September 28, 2015. Yang decided to do the same for Tiangong – and vary his image by blending the transit sequence with a high dynamic range (HDR) capture of the Moon, while maintaining detail in the penumbra, the darkest part of Earth’s shadow.
To plan the shot, Yang started with Tiangong’s orbital parameters published by the China Manned Space Agency in Orbital Ephemeris Message (OEM) format. Yang used the mobile app Planit Pro to convert the OEM data to the more common two-line element (TLE) format and visualize the space station’s path across the eclipsed moon. “With this information,” he says, “I only needed to select an observing site with favorable viewing conditions” – which was outside the city of Chifeng, China.
There was another idea: “I deliberately chose a location a little off the central transit line,” says Yang. “This way, the station’s image will pass through the bright part of the eclipsed moon, avoiding the deep shadow area where the track may have been less clear or incomplete.”
The resulting sequence consists of 22 frames in just 0.72 seconds – hardly noticeable in video, but leaving a strong impression in an image.
