Zatz it: New Hyde Park dentist snaps shuttle fly-by

Richard Tedesco

New Hyde Park dentist Martin Zatz’s front-page photo of the space shuttle Enterprise that appears in this week’s New Hyde Park Herald Courier was taken in a 10-second window of opportunity that was a calculated case of being in the right place at the right time.

Zatz had read about the flight plan for the shuttle mounted on the back of a Boeing 757 jet on the Web the night before its flight from Washington, D.C. to New York. He knew when it had taken off that morning by monitoring the CNN Web site and was following tweets on his cell phone as the shuttle was winging its way toward LaGuardia Airport.

Knowing it would be heading east toward for a fly-by over the Terminal Radar Approach Control and Air Route Traffic Control Center in Westbury after leaving LaGuardia, Zatz picked an open spot by the Manor Oaks School on Hillside Avenue where he had a clear shot both north and south of where he stood.

“I didn’t know whether it would pass to the north or south of me. I tried to think of a spot that had clear views in both directions,” Zatz said. “It was there for a matter of 10 seconds. It was very quiet. You barely heard it coming. ”

He waited for a half-hour had his Canon T3i set on automatic and “let it do its thing,” capturing a sequence of 10 shots as the shuttle soared across a bright blue sky punctuated with white clouds at approximately 11 a.m. last Thursday.

“I had a good eye and a good piece of subject material. And it helps that I had a bright sunny day,” he said.

Asked if he thought it was the best shot he’d ever taken, he called it his “most interesting once-in-a-lifetime shot.”

Zatz has pursued his hobby of taking pictures for years, but he normally reserves his avocation for vacations with his wife and his two children.

“This was the first time I went somewhere to specifically take a picture of something,” Zatz said.  

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