Photographing a rocket transiting the moon is a rare sight that requires skill and precision. Pascal Fouquet, a photographer from Orlando, Florida, captured this feat and won first place in the United States’ National Award for the Sony World Photography Awards 2024. The awards program, a collaboration between Sony and the World Photography Organization, received submissions from around the world.
Fouquet’s winning shot captured the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket passing in front of the moon just before the new year. The rocket was launching the United States Space Force X-37B spaceplane on the USSF-52 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With less than 48 hours to find the perfect location to capture this image, Fouquet ultimately settled on an open field behind a hospice center 13.8 miles away from the launch pad.
Using a Nikon D850 camera, Fouquet set his shutter speed to 1/1600 of a second to capture this precise moment when the Falcon Heavy rocket passed by
