INSANELY awesome solar eclipse picture

[Ichingcarpenter]

INSANELY awesome solar eclipse picture




Earlier today Europe, Asia, and Africa got to see a nice partial solar eclipse as the Moon passed in front of the Sun, blocking as much as 85% of the solar surface. The extraordinarily talented astrophotographer Thierry Legault traveled from his native France to the Sultanate of Oman to take pictures of the eclipse. Why there, of all places? Heh heh heh. It’ll be more clear when you see this ridiculously awesome picture he took:






ABOUT 11 O'CLOCK LOOKS LIKE A SUNSPOT

THE SPACE STATION.....


LINK WITH EVEN A CLOSEUP OF THE STATION

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/04/insanely-awesome-solar-eclipse-picture/


To give you an overall idea of what you’re seeing here: the Sun is 147 million kilometers away (less than usual because this eclipse happened, coincidentally, very close to perihelion, when Earth was closest to the Sun). The Moon is 390,000 kilometers away. The Sun is about 400 times bigger than the Moon, but also about 400 times farther away, making them look about the same size in the sky. If you’re still having a hard time picturing the scale, take a look at the dark sunspot in the lower right of the big picture: it’s about twice the size of the Earth!

The space station, on the other hand, is 100 meters across (the size of a football field) and orbits about 350 km (210 miles) above the Earth’s surface. So the Moon was very roughly 1000 times farther away than the ISS when this picture was taken, and the Sun 400,000 times more distant. Yet all three lined up just right to make this extraordinary photograph possible.

[tridim]

1. Vader. nt

[crim son]

2. Unfreakingbelievable. Thanks for posting this! n/t

[liberal N proud]

3. The inclusion of the space station is awesome

[canadianbeaver]

4. Looks like the Canadian flag.....haa haaa n/t

[peacefreak]

5. That's what I thought!

eh?

[JBoy]

11. Dammit, our secret Sun Base has been discovered!

I was gonna retire there, instead of moving to Arizona!

[ET Awful]

6. You're all wrong, that black spot at 11:00 is . . . .

an Imperial TIE Fighter:




EDIT: Oops, the first reply beat me to it . . . except Vader's fighter had different panels:

[qb]

7. Thanks for the new wallpaper!

:hi:

[IADEMO2004]

8. I haven't seen everything but I'm a lot closer now.

Awesome

[emilyg]

9. Thank you.

[Odin2005]

10. You can see the roughness of the Moon's surface, too.

The outline is bumpy.

[amyrose2712]

12. Sweet.

[krispos42]

13. That is pretty damn cool indeed. Sorry... too late to rec. :-( n/t