Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, writer and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal who creates spectacular images of the night sky. as European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and membership The world at night and official astrophotographer Dark Sky Alceva ReserveHe specializes in astronomical „skyscapes” that combine both the Earth and the night sky.
This image shows the silhouette of the International Space Station (ISS) as it passes in front of the disk of the Sun at a distance of 274 miles (441.5 km) from us and at a speed of about 4.5 miles per second (7.31 km/s). .
On June 2, 2024, at 1:18 p.m. local time (1218 GMT), as seen from Figueira da Foz in northern Portugal, the total duration of this transit was just 54 seconds. The video shows a time-lapse of 200 images taken in about 2 seconds.
Even with a special telescope equipped with hydrogen filters, it was difficult to see the ISS transit across the Sun. Player One was able to capture this rare moment in the blink of an eye with a high-speed video camera. Apollo-M MaxIts shutter is set to a very fast frame rate of 109 frames per second.
The images were processed individually, not stacked, and I was impressed with the quality achieved with just single frames. Due to the inversion technique used to process images of the Sun’s chromosphere with greater depth, the ISS appears white in the first row. The second row shows the ISS in black without this inverted view.
It is interesting that the unique structures of the ISS can be identified, including the solar panels and modules in the photo. The image shows in great detail jets of gas in the Sun’s outer atmosphere, a large gas filament and a large active region (or sunspot), as well as some solar prominences around the Sun’s mantle. At 865,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) in diameter, our Sun is composed of 73% hydrogen, 25% helium, and 2% heavier elements.
ISS completes a full orbit around Earth every 90-93 minutes. The orbiting laboratory, home to an international crew of astronauts, spans about 358 feet (109 meters) across. Although very large in the sky with an angular diameter of 62.58″, the ISS looks very small compared to the massive size of the Sun’s disk with an angular diameter of 31.6′.
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