Photo of Shuttle docked with Space Station
Photo Credit: Thierry Legualt
Here’s another astounding image taken by Thierry Legualt, known for his ground-breaking astronomical photography. It shows space shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station, on July 26th 2009.
One can’t just take a snapshot of the ISS – even with the most powerful and sophisticated equipment. It needs to be backlit, and the Sun is the most handy light to use. But consider this: the ISS was 500 km away, and moving at a speed of 7 km/sec (that’s 25,000 km/hr!) and the transit across the Sun took just 0.75 seconds. Now that’s planning.
Interestingly, when the Endeavour docked on July 15, a new record was set for space-vehicle occupancy – the 13 people of the combined crews.
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Shuttle against the Sun
Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)
This amazing photo was taken of the space shuttle Atlantis during a “solar transit” – basically moving between the viewer on Earth and the Sun. It was taken on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida, before the Atlantis the crew had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope.
It was photographed by Thierry Legault using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera.
For more on this photograph and others in the series, visit Solar Transit of Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope.
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