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Thanks to @gerrit's comment I have "irrefutable photographic circumstantial evidence" that the ISS (probably) passed through the penumbra of a partial solar eclipse. I know this is true because it is on the internet.

My evidence is the purple line I drew in the cropped bit of the image shown below.

The International Space Station, with a crew of six onboard, is seen in silhouette as it transits the Sun at roughly five miles per second during a partial solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017 near Banner, Wyoming.

Captured by NASA photographer Joel Kowsky while looking up from Banner, Wyoming, perfectly timed images show a tiny ISS passing in front of the sun.

Seriously though, did anybody on the ISS see and/or photograph this partial eclipse? If so, how long did the eclipse last for them, and how did they manage to safely photograph the Sun?

cropped and annotated "The International Space Station, with a crew of six onboard, is seen in silhouette as it transits the Sun at roughly five miles per second during a partial solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017 near Banner, Wyoming." Captured by NASA photographer Joel Kowsky

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Partial answer covering two of the three questions in the post.

  • "did anybody on the ISS see and/or photograph this partial eclipse?"

Solar Eclipse Viewing: The crew removed scratch panes from Cupola windows #4 and #6 and cleaned the window #3 scratch pane. The crew then took both HD video and still images of the moon’s umbra on Earth from the Cupola. They also obtained images of both the sun and the moon. In addition, the P1 Lower Outboard External High Definition Camera (EHDC) was used to capture HD video of the moon’s umbra on Earth.

ISS Daily Status Report 8/21/2017

This photo was also included in my answer to an old question of yours here: Is this the only eclipse where Moon's shadow on the Earth (umbra) has been photographed by a person in space?1

enter image description here

  • "how long did the eclipse last for them"

There is a great deal of information available here at ISS Observations The ISS passed through the penumbra three times. Only on the second pass could the crew see the Moon's umbra on the Earth's surface. They did not see a total eclipse on any of the passes because the ISS never passed through the umbra.

  • 1st pass duration: ~14 minutes
  • 2nd pass duration: ~18 minutes
  • 3rd pass duration: ~20 minutes

(graphic showing 1st pass - graphics for other passes available at source)

enter image description here

Additional sources

1 Your comment on my answer there could serve as a partial answer to this question. An additional comment from you on my answer there links to three more images taken during this event and tweeted by Komrade. A third comment from you on my answer there links to video tweeted by Don Pettit.

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    $\begingroup$ The quote says ". They also obtained images of both the sun and the moon." But I didn't find any. Nice list of questions. The P1LOOB camera mentioned in the quote is discussed in one of them. What's the relevance of the question about flyarounds? $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Apr 2, 2021 at 11:06
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    $\begingroup$ Just a couple of months ago NASA finally finished destroying spaceflight.nasa.gov which would have been the place to find the pictures. The "replacement" images.nasa.gov has only a primitive search capability. $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Apr 2, 2021 at 11:26
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    $\begingroup$ I've gone holographic for the next few days; only a low resolution reconstruction of me is active on the site (deadlines loom large in the "real world"). Most of the questions linked in my comments above relate to the possible existence of a "zenith-facing" or "zenith-viewing" window. If astronauts were going to see the eclipse I think that they would have to look somewhat up (zenith hemisphere), because of the way that the ISS orbit and the path of eclipse maximum intersect. I don't think that the cupola could provide a view of the Sun with any of it's limb covered by the Moon. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Apr 2, 2021 at 18:02
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    $\begingroup$ So I'm hoping that someone put a solar filter or a very small aperture on one of the very big, long focal length lenses with the active vibration cancelation in it and found one of the "zenith facing" windows (or a capsule?) and snapped a photo of the partially eclipsed Sun. If not, then the only way would be to use one of the exterior cameras. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Apr 2, 2021 at 18:05
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    $\begingroup$ @uhoh best wishes with the deadlines! $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Apr 2, 2021 at 18:07

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