Shuttle and the Sun

[sstein]

Description from Nasa site:

In this tightly cropped image, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. This image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope.

The photographer made this image using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera.

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Amazing

Edited by sstein on Saturday 16th May 00:35

[Fabric 2.2]

impressive!

[bluetone]

Well spotted that man

[mickk]

How far away from the Sun is the Shuttle?

[phumy]

mickk said:

How far away from the Sun is the Shuttle?

Seeing as the shuttle is a couple of thousand miles from Earth, then its roughly 93 million miles from the Sun to the shuttle.

[bluetone]

phumy said:

mickk said:

How far away from the Sun is the Shuttle?

Seeing as the shuttle is a couple of thousand miles from Earth, then its roughly 93 million miles from the Sun to the shuttle.

Many orbits much lower than you would think = Hubble Space Telescope, the subject of this shuttle mission, orbits at only 347 miles above the earth's surface.

[Eric Mc]

Hardly any closer than you or me. On this mission, the Shuttle is orbiting at a height of approximately 340 miles (the normal altitude is 230 miles). The sun is 93 MILLION miles away.

Nice picture though

(There is a similar one around of the Space Station transitting the sun).

Edited by Eric Mc on Saturday 16th May 08:44

[davido140]

phumy said:

mickk said:

How far away from the Sun is the Shuttle?

Seeing as the shuttle is a couple of thousand miles from Earth, then its roughly 93 million miles from the Sun to the shuttle.

good example of HOW fkING HUGE the sun is!

[Puggit]

Any old excuse for me to wheel this old pic out, of Venus transitting the Sun:



Took it myself, with a Meade ETX-90 telescope, featuring a solar filter, with a Canon PowerShot A710 camera.

[Durruti]

The sun explained in music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbgul1NpEA8&fea...

[Eric Mc]

davido140 said:

phumy said:

mickk said:

How far away from the Sun is the Shuttle?

Seeing as the shuttle is a couple of thousand miles from Earth, then its roughly 93 million miles from the Sun to the shuttle.

good example of HOW fkING HUGE the sun is!

Not really

The Shuttle passing in front of the moon would look very similar. In fact, by coincidence, the apparent sizes of the sun and the moon as seen from the earth's surface are virtually identical.

[cs02rm0]

Diameter of the moon ~= 2160 miles.
Diameter of the earth ~= 8000 miles.
Diameter of the sun ~= 865000 miles.

Never really occurred to me before that the Sun would be that big!

[Eric Mc]

And it's not even a particularly large star.

[cottonfoo]

Puggit said:

Any old excuse for me to wheel this old pic out, of Venus transitting the Sun:

Very nice, got a larger one?

[Los Palmas 7]

cottonfoo said:

Very nice, got a larger one?

I bet you say that to all the boys.

[Eric Mc]

Two for the price of one

[tonyvid]

cs02rm0 said:

Diameter of the moon ~= 2160 miles.
Diameter of the earth ~= 8000 miles.
Diameter of the sun ~= 865000 miles.

Never really occurred to me before that the Sun would be that big!

Or that the Moon is 1/4 the size of the Earth! In all my years of star gazing, I have never really thought about that.

[Eric Mc]

Even better -

http://iss-transit.sourceforge.net/videos/RolandSt...

[sadako]

Eric Mc said:

Even better -

http://iss-transit.sourceforge.net/videos/RolandSt...

Won't play. It isn't a rickroll/2girls1cup/etc is it?

[philthy]

sadako said:

Eric Mc said:

Even better -

http://iss-transit.sourceforge.net/videos/RolandSt...

Won't play. It isn't a rickroll/2girls1cup/etc is it?

Had to download it, but very cool !