Lee County- Just as the sun was setting Monday night, we met with local space photographer T.L. Fox in rural Lee County.

The rural surroundings are a prime location for Fox, with very little light pollution to drown out the stars above.

We watched as he assembled his telescope, a process he makes look so simple after a lifetime of observing the night skies.

Shortly after midnight, he aimed the telescope straight up into the night sky to capture a brief moment in time when an asteroid, know as 219 Thusnelda, crossed in front of a distant star at least 500 light years away.

The four seconds he captured, at the equivelant of 26,000 frames per second, could open up a world of the unknown for the NASA scientists who contacted Fox to capture the cosmic event.

"We can get a better idea of how old it (the star) is, how much longer it has left, if it's still burning mainly hydrogen or has it gone into the helium," explained Fox.

Those details will help tell scientists how old the star is, only known as HIP 38140. But, the moment he's hoping to capture could reveal planets believed to be orbiting this distant star and what they're made of.

"By the time NASA gets through with it, who knows we might be able to find there might be a planet close to it we may find that might be earth-like, we just don't know," said Fox.

Not everyone was able to watch the cosmic event as it unfolded. There were only a few places in the world the event could be seen and Southwest Florida was one of them.

Fox used a high powered telescope and programmed it to focus on the asteroid before it crossed in front of the star and followed it as it made the brief pass in front of it.

It's not an easy task, "It's like threading a needle in California from New York," said Fox, "It's pretty hard, but it can be done."

Fox's pictures will be studied by scientists and just to be the one to get the call, Fox said, "When NASA gets a hold of you and they want you to do something, you feel pretty special. I was glad to do it."