Space | 25. May 2010 | posted by Marco Trovatello

ISS Sun transit

DLR staff member Thilo Kranz took this great image in his leisure time last Sunday. It shows a transit of the Sun by the International Space Station ISS with Space Shuttle Atlantis docked.

Thilo Kranz notes:

"On Sunday, 13:38:52 CEST I took this image of the ISS as it passed across the solar disk in just 0.51 seconds. I captured the image with the help of my telescope and 1/5000 second exposure time. At this time, preparations for undocking of Space Shuttle Atlantis during its final mission, STS-132, were ongoing. You can see the still docked shuttle in the 11 o'clock position. Also, you may recognise the solar panels and the large radiators. In the full resolution version of this image, you can also see the Soyuz capsule. Close to the centre of the Sun, a group of sunspots is visible."

 

ISS and Shuttle transit the sun on 23/05/2010. Image: DLR.

Thilo Kranz works in the Launchers Department of DLR's Space Agency in Bonn. Thanks for providing the image, Thilo! We will publish the high resolution version of the image in our Multimedia-Portal soon (Update will follow). A high resolution version of the image is available here.

By the way: On 18 May Thierry Legault and 'Bad Astronomer' Phil Plait published a similar and equally beautiful image.

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About the author

As Head of the Cross-Media Section of DLR's Corporate Communications Department, Marco Trovatello was responsible for Communication across all media distribution channels. As of 1 May 2014, he serves as Cross-Media Coordinator and Strategy Advisor in the Corporate Communications Department of the European Space Agency ESA. to authorpage