Amateur Christchurch astronomer films rare International Space Station video

An amateur Christchurch astronomer has managed to get a rare shot of the International Space Station (ISS) from north Canterbury.

Jono Townsend managed to capture footage of the ISS passing above Earth travelling at 3600km/h with a fixed-lens camera.

He told Newshub he wasn't sure he was going to be able to get the footage.

"I made a coffee and headed out to a dark, north Canterbury location.

"When I saw it on the viewfinder of my camera I was ecstatic."

Townsend said he found out the ISS was going to be transiting the lunar face at the time - Thursday night - on website Transit Finder.

"I must've been grinning the whole way home to Christchurch when I was able to upload it to the computer and take a screenshot from a frame in the video," he told Newshub.

"The entire transit took all of 0.67 seconds."

Last year, Auckland astronomer Josh Kirkley told Newshub the ISS passes over Auckland two to four times a week on average, but it's extremely rare to align with passing over the moon, as that only happens once every year or two.

Newshub.