Comments on: But that's where the fun is

But that's where the fun is

dhartung — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:01:12 -0800

Atlantis. Hubble. And a big, yellow friend. Astrophotographer Thierry Legault managed to get amazing shots of Space Shuttle Atlantis approaching the Hubble Space Telescope during a transit of the sun.

Don't do this at home, kids. (His site is down, so the link is through Coral.)

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:06:41 -0800

Nice title.

By: Ron Thanagar

Ron Thanagar — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:20:34 -0800

Incredible shot! Too damn awesome.

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:22:19 -0800

I used to have a similar picture (taken by the same guy, apparently, a few years ago) of the Shuttle near ISS transiting the sun as a desktop background.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:24:11 -0800

Ron Thanagar: "Too damn awesome." Why did we stop worshiping the sun anyway? Our lives really do derive from it. And you don't have to take its existence on faith. It's right there.

By: vibrotronica

vibrotronica — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:25:24 -0800

Awesome!

By: disillusioned

disillusioned — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:26:42 -0800

This is a much faster loading link. This is the content on the slow-loading page:

Only image ever taken of a transit of a space shuttle (Atlantis) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in front of the Sun, during the last repair mission of Hubble, obtained from Florida at 100 km south of the Kennedy Space Center on May 13th 2009 12:17 local time, several minutes before grapple of Hubble by Atlantis. Transit duration: 0.8s. Transit bandwidth on Earth: 5.6 km. Altitude: 600 km. Speed: 7 km/s (25000 km/h). Length of Atlantis : 35m, length of Hubble : 13m. Transit forecast (place, time...) calculated by www.calsky.com. Takahashi TOA-130 refractor (diameter 130mm, final focal 2200mm), Baader solar prism and Canon 5D mark II. Exposure of 1/8000s at 100 ISO, extracted from a series of 16 images (4 images/s) started 2s before the predicted time.

Absolutely amazing.

By: inire

inire — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:30:50 -0800

Incredible and vertigo-inducing.

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:31:27 -0800

Joe Beese: "Why did we stop worshiping the sun anyway?" We didn't, we just covered it up in metaphor so well that most people forgot that The Son = the Sun.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:35:29 -0800

Why did we stop worshiping the sun anyway? Because it stopped listening, and kept on going with no heed to human wishes or worries. I think we missed a few sacrificial days, or maybe we realized the virgins weren't so pure, but lo and behold, the sun rose the next day. All the fickle gods get the attention and praise.

By: nosila

nosila — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:39:43 -0800

Why, hello, new wallpaper. Nice to see you!

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:52:35 -0800

Transit duration: 0.8s Holy shit.

By: sperose

sperose — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:55:53 -0800

It's strange how wee we are.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:05:52 -0800

Why did we stop worshiping the sun anyway? It's a pain to climb all those steps. *plays chopsticks with a teenage diplomat* Picture makes me thirsty for Tranya.

By: symbioid

symbioid — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:09:45 -0800

Am I the only one who imagined the Sun would look... I dunno. Larger? The Telescope and Shuttle look a lot larger than I imagined they would.

By: bonobothegreat

bonobothegreat — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:23:49 -0800

I am so m*th*rf*ck*ng thankful for this internet thing.

By: zeoslap

zeoslap — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:26:17 -0800

wow

By: Simon Barclay

Simon Barclay — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:26:55 -0800

Unbelievable. And cool title.

By: symbioid

symbioid — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:29:24 -0800

NVM I'm fucking dense sometimes. It's not like the Hubble is floating near the sun.

By: jfrancis

jfrancis — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:35:15 -0800

I think the falloff is interesting.

By: waitingtoderail

waitingtoderail — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:39:55 -0800

Am I the only one who imagined the Sun would look... I dunno. Larger? The Telescope and Shuttle look a lot larger than I imagined they would. Don't forget, they are about 360 miles away. The Sun is 93 MILLION miles away. It appears almost exactly as large in the sky as the moon does. That's how we can have total eclipses.

By: marvin

marvin — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:41:04 -0800

amazing, especially when you remember that they shot across the face of the sun's disc in a fraction of a second.

By: marvin

marvin — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:41:48 -0800

Oh yes, "0.8 of a second"

By: the cuban

the cuban — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:55:51 -0800

This is my new wallpaper :)

By: orme

orme — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:57:19 -0800

That was some good timing right there. Only four seconds of shooting?

By: jfrancis

jfrancis — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:58:19 -0800

amazing, especially when you remember that they shot across the face of the sun's disc in a fraction of a second. I recall he used a Canon 5D Mk II - did he shoot running HD video and choose a frame?

By: jfrancis

jfrancis — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:59:30 -0800

ok - I see he didn't shoot running HD from his dSLR

By: kms

kms — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:16:57 -0800

This is really a mind-boggling photo. That you could capture this in the 0.8 seconds while they were in front of the sun, just as Atlantis approaches Hubble but before it grabs it blows my mind.

By: shothotbot

shothotbot — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:31:00 -0800

He got the transit time estimates from CalSky.com which looks pretty cool, if you are a star-looking kind of person. Here for example is a more-or-less current satellite shot centered on your location (if you are in the US). And here is where/when the ISS will transit the sun.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:37:11 -0800

Only image ever taken of a transit of a space shuttle (Atlantis) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in front of the Sun, during the last repair mission of Hubble, obtained from Florida at 100 km south of the Kennedy Space Center on May 13th 2009 12:17 local time, several minutes before grapple of Hubble by Atlantis. "However, we have hundreds and hundreds of such photos taken from 99.5 km south of Kennedy Space Center." Why isn't there a single sunspot? Exposure time too short?

By: Phantomx

Phantomx — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:44:05 -0800

There's no sunspot because there aren't any sunspots on the sun right now. It's been an unusually long solar minimum.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:58:44 -0800

Nice title. Just nobody ruin the thread by coming in here with Chopsticks, okay?

By: bru

bru — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:23:07 -0800

Once upon a time, 27 years ago...

By: WPW

WPW — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:42:12 -0800

Amazing. Magnificent.

By: treepour

treepour — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:49:36 -0800

Oh wow, this is sublime.

By: dirty lies

dirty lies — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:52:53 -0800

For those wondering, that is a 12k USD telescope, a 400 EUR prism and a 2k USD camera. For less than 15k USD and years of practice you too can take pictures like these.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 15 May 2009 19:05:33 -0800

..there aren't any sunspots on the sun right now. Finally, solar puberty is over! My little son, all grown up...

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:39:37 -0800

Yeah DU but he won't really be a man until the Bar Mitzvah ...oh like the sun's not Jewish? His name's Sol. All the best real estate revolves around him...

By: futureisunwritten

futureisunwritten — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:47:31 -0800

I feel incredibly small right now. Thanks for posting this amazing link.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:08:42 -0800

Wow, I just realized this was my first post in about three years. Glad it was a good one.

By: squarehead

squarehead — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:15:43 -0800

Wow... man... dude.

By: pkingdesign

pkingdesign — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:43:51 -0800

There are a couple more substantially awesome photos in the NASA photostream on Flickr. Looking forward to more photos from them, actually. Didn't know they were on Flickr til this evening.

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:07:34 -0800

Peek-a-boo: "The mission to Hubble, which began on May 11th and is planned to last 11 days, will install a wide-field camera that will let the telescope see galaxies previously beyond its reach." Happy birthday, Hubble: "Photo Gallery for 19 Years of Hubble." "The most important telescopes in history: In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, New Scientist takes you on an armchair tour of some of the most important telescopes ever built."

By: thecaddy

thecaddy — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:02:05 -0800

Not the first time Legault has taken a photo of the shuttle in transit of the sun ...

By: hypersloth

hypersloth — Sun, 17 May 2009 03:26:13 -0800

! (not . ) !.

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Mon, 18 May 2009 06:54:52 -0800

Why did we stop worshiping the sun anyway? "You do not beg the sun for mercy." — Frank Herbert, Dune

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:55:19 -0800

The Big Picture:Hubble's final servicing mission