Amazing Images of Shuttle and Hubble Transiting Sun

By Nancy Atkinson - May 15, 2009 at 5:53 AM UTC | Missions

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No, these aren't sunspots finally appearing on our currently quiet sun. Check out these

amazing images

taken by photographer Thierry Legault. The "spots" are actually the space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope transiting across the sun!

Legault's website

says these are the only images ever taken of a transit of a shuttle and the HST in front of the Sun. Legault was in Florida at the time he took this image, about 100 km south of the Kennedy Space Center on May 13th 2009 12:17 local time, several minutes before grapple of Hubble by Atlantis. The transit only lasted .8 seconds, and Legault was able to snap 4 images a second, getting a total of 16 different shots of the entire event (he started shooting 2 seconds before the predicted transit.)

He took another image the previous day of just the shuttle transiting (see below.)

[caption id="attachment_30892" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="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. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault) "]

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Here, space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit, on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, also taken from Florida. This image was taken made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had caught up with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Amazing!

See more on NASA's Flickr page.

See more of Legault's photographer

here

and

here

.