There are plenty of photos of the International Space Station out there on the Internet, but taking your own from ground level is a special challenge. [saveitforparts] recently decided to attempt this feat using a $15 thrift store lens.What a setup! The lens is so big it has its own tripod mount.The cool thing about the digital photography revolution is that there is a lot of old film gear that can be had for cheap. In this case, [saveitforparts] found a 400mm Sigma XQ lens with a 2x teleconverter for just $14.99. Paired with an adapter, it sat nicely on a Sony NEX-3 digital camera, ready to try and capture the ISS as it passed overhead. As you might imagine, aiming at the space station is not a point-and-shoot job. N2YO.com was used to figure out the best time to try and capture it. [saveitforparts] was able to capture the ISS as a white dot as it passed over, but couldn’t quite get enough zoom to really see the ISS in detail. [saveitforparts] was also able to repeat the feat with a Canon camcorder, too, but the image was still pretty blobby and didn’t show much. Later attempts involved capturing transits as the ISS passed by the Sun, though the ISS mostly appeared as a small speck.[saveitforparts] did technically capture the ISS, just not closely enough to see much beyond a dot. It’s not the first time we’ve seen this attempted, though! If you try and capture the ISS with something truly ridiculous, like a Game Boy Camera or Kodak Charmera, you are honour-bound to tell us on the tipsline. Video after the break.