Ground-based observations capture spacewalking astronaut in action

More impressive ground based images of the STS-133 mission, this time, Amateur astronomer Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands took images during one of the spacewalks for the mission, and likely captured astronaut Steve Bowen at work on the end of the Canadarm 2! Click on the image above, or go to Ralf’s website for a better view and more information.

Another amateur astronomer from the UK, Martin Lewis also took similar images of the spacewalk.

Ralf uses a 10 inch Newtonian telescope with a videocam eyepiece, and manually tracks the ISS and other objects across the sky. He takes most of his images in color to obtain the maximum possible information of the objects.

He took a similar image about 2 years ago of astronaut Joe Acaba on an EVA outside the ISS in March of 2009, which was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day. He has also taken images of of ISS and Dexter, the special purpose manipulator, or this one of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-131 mission.