Here’s a swell time-lapse picture and real-time video of today’s solar eclipse that fortuitously captured a transit of the ISS. Photo and video by Thierry Legault from the Real Time Eclipse Gallery.
Legault’s words;
I had to drive a lot trying to find clear sky, finally the sky was covered with thick high clouds but I got the ISS in transit during the eclipse.
The photo:
The video (see how quickly it goes by!):
h/t: Matthew Cobb
Very cool!! At first it looked like Frankenstein (-steen)stitching across a crescent moon.
Whenever I’ve watched ISS go by, that thing is really motoring. I have gotten to watch it until it fizzles in the earth shine.
That darn thing is really going! I wondered if it was time-lapse (didn’t really think so, what’d be the point of speeding it up that much), but from the context of the Youtube page it’s real-time.
And just to split hairs, the first photo isn’t time-lapse either, it’s a montage (is that the right term?) of successive frames from the video (assuming the video is at the usual 25 or 30 fps).
It’s moving really fast, but its apparent speed is greatly amplified by the extreme magnification of the telephoto lens Thierry used.
Remember, the Sun has about the same angular size as your thumb held at arm’s length. Even somebody walking down the street is going to cover that distance really quickly.
But, still…its average speed is about 17,000 MPH, so, yeah…the thing is booking.
As usual, Randal Munroe does a great job of putting it into perspective:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ4Ib-7fJqY
b&
Great site:-)
+ 1
Randall’s on a trajectory to become as important a science educator and popularizer as Sagan and Attenborough, but in a completely different manner. He’s one to keep an eye on…if for no other reason than that you will learn all sorts of fascinating stuff about the world if you do. That, and your mind will frequently be blown….
b&
I’m aware of the magnifying effect of a long telephoto lens but even allowing for that, the ISS is self-evidently going really really fast.
Here’s the thing…note that the ISS is 400 km from our observing pupil and retina. The moon is 400,000 km, and the sun at 150 million km. Now think of an arc subtending the viewing angle in the view above. Obviously, …
Here’s the thing…note that the ISS is 400 km from our observing pupil and retina. The moon is 400,000 km, and the sun at 150 million km. Now think of an arc subtending the viewing angle in the view above. Obviously, …
Great vid, now can we see ISIS eclipsed and going by quickly?
Wouldn’t that be great! I first read the ISS as ISIS…
Sorry to bang on about Islam today, but…
My 14 year-old daughter goes to a school in which 70% of the kids have Muslim parents. At morning registration, just before the eclipse at 9.30 a.m., the Muslim girls started praying.
They explained to my daughter that they were praying that it wasn’t the end of the world. They also said that she would go to hell if she didn’t pray.
Oh how we laughed as we settled down to watch Brian Cox and Dara O’Briain on ‘Stargazing’ tonight.
Allele akhbar. x
What a weird experience for your daughter. How oddly superstitious of those students. Sounds like you’re all handling it well though.
Thank . If they hadn’t prayed it would have been the end of the world. Well, those parts of it where the eclipse was visible. The rest of the world would have been ok though apparently.
Wait. Let me see that again…
THAT is cool!
Thierry is fucking insane. He’s pulling off shit like this left and right, and I haven’t a clue how the hell he does it. If you see a photo of some impossible conjunction, it’s almost guaranteed that Thierry took the picture because nobody else ever manages to get the shot even if they’re crazy enough to waste time trying to think of how to go about making the attempt.
b&
He must be in touch with the supernatural.
Or, at least, the heavens above….
b&
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.