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Thread: ISS, Hubble & Atlantis with thermonuclear backdrop

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    Default ISS, Hubble & Atlantis with thermonuclear backdrop

    The big yellow thing is the Sun. But look at the upper right section. See those two dark blips? The one on the left is the Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis and on the right is the International Space Station! Incredibly, Thierry caught them as they passed directly in front of the Sun! To give you an idea of how talented Thierry is, the entire transit lasted just over half a second.

    Click to embiggen. I mean it, click it. The full-scale image is drop-dead incredible. Mind you, Atlantis had just started its pitch maneuver, designed to show its belly to the crew on the ISS so they can inspect it for heat tile damage. That means this image was taken shortly before the Orbiter docked with the station, on May 16th. Thierry was in Madrid specifically to get this shot.

    Un frakkin’ believable.

    Get a good look. This is the last mission of Atlantis (unless it’s needed as a rescue mission later this year), so we won’t get too many more views like this.


    OK, so you look at it and say, "So what? It’s a picture of the quiet Sun seen in overcast conditions. Big deal!"

    Ah, but a big deal it is. See those spots in the lower left quadrant of our nearest star? Those aren’t sunspots… here, let me show you what those are:


    Thierry Legault, Sun, Atlantis, and Hubble


    Yes, that is in fact the Space Shuttle Atlantis silhouetted against the Sun. But wait, there’s something else, isn’t there. What’s that spot below the Shuttle?

    That, me droogs, is the Hubble Space Telescope. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

    Holy Haleakala!

    The exceptionally gifted astrophotographer Thierry Legault captured this stunning tableau just minutes before the crew of Atlantis caught up with and captured Hubble for its very last servicing mission on May 13, 2009. This shot has never been accomplished before, and it’s magnificent. He used a 13 cm telescope, and camera that took a series of 16 images of 1/8000th of second each.







    Reality is an invention of my imagination.
    ಠ_ಠ

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