Thierry Legault does some of the best solar system astrophotography I'm aware of (or at least the stuff I'm most interested in). Many amazing images of ISS and other spacecraft, images of the surface of the sun, lunar images, lunar occultation of other planets, etc etc. This is just another example of his excellent work.
Thank you for pointing this out. After reading the opening line of "Thierry Legault pointed his camera up at the night sky..." I thought to myself "Man, that must be some camera." Turns out he very much does this professionally and a telescope is also involved.
(Taken with a 14" telescope. Good "astronomical seeing" conditions and necessary post-processing notwithstanding, the smallest resolvable details depend linearly on telescope's aperture (i.e., the primary optical element's diameter).)
EDIT: I also like this animation a lot, ISS crossing the sky (9.25" telescope):
Jaw-dropping is an understatement -- that's a stunning composition. How did he convince the moon and space station to perfectly pose together and the sun to light them so sharply like that?
I've never seen a photo that reveals the roughness of the moon in profile like the high contrast craters and mountains along the edge.
> How did he convince the moon and space station to perfectly pose together
The negotiations were tense, but in the end, the Space Station agreed to stop calling the Moon "crater face," and the Moon agreed to stop talking about Flat Earth Theory.
That is indeed a stunning photo. Especially considering that the ISS orbits at around 400km and the moon at ~380,000km. It looks like it would be in a dangerously low orbit around the moon.
>> "I did it, so it can be done," Legault replied. "Anyway, will a million dollar racket will (sic) make you defeat Federer or Nadal?"
My wife is a not-bad-for-an-amateur photographer of family events etc and any time she takes a good photo people ask "What camera did you use?"
I wonder if people used to go up to Shakespeare and say "Great play. What quill did you use?" Not that I'm comparing my wife to Shakespeare, but I could thrash around with an expensive DSLR for ages and not get a photo as good as a pro with an iphone 7. It's not the camera that makes a good photo.
I would like to know the camera too, because he takes the shot at 1/6000. What kind of camera lets in enough light at that shutter speed in the night sky to get that kind of photo at an apparently-low ISO (not a lot of grain apparent in the photo)?
I had the reverse experience... I borrowed a friends super fancy camera, and used it on all the 'auto' modes, and it gave amazing results, despite me having no real photography skill.
Nice thing about the moon and ISS is that there are lots of opportunities to photograph them. To get an actual transit like that you may have to travel some distance or wait a long time: https://transit-finder.com/
Anyone know what are the chances of this happening again in the future? Except the "take the photo" part. I'm talking about:
- it's night
- clear sky
- right geo coordinates
- ISS passing between the moon and said right geo coordinates
Just thinking of these and then add on top that you have 0.5s to take the photo. This was truly a "right moment, right place, right person" kind of thing.
There is a lot of occasions for observations if you are into it.
This photo is not a happy accident, though. It took careful preparation.
Let's see... it looks that at a distance of 400km we can see features of size roughly 1m (or even better). This points to resolution of 0.01 arcsecond which is fenomenal for an amateur setup.
There are quite a few calculators that give you exact transit times for a location. You need a precise clock on your phone and then you can start shooting bursts half a second before transit until your buffer is full. It’s very anxiety inducing because you can’t see anything but so far it has worked out every time. I only have a 400mm lens so the quality is not that great but you can see the solar panels and the outline of the station.
I have also done it in front of the moon but that’s way harder because you have less light and get slower shutter speeds resulting in motion blur.
It’s actually quite common. I have a photo of a transit of the Moon taken from my backyard, and another from a couple of miles down the road. I also took one ISS transit of the Sun in my parent’s backyard the day before Atlantis undocked on the last ever Shuttle flight. So I really haven’t had to go out of my way to capture them.
Those photos were within a couple of years of each other, obviously some time ago now.
What definition of clickbait are you using here? In my head, clickbait is still "You won't BELIEVE this ONE CLEVER TRICK! Astrophotographers HATE him!", or something like that. I'm guessing you don't like the emotional wording in "jaw-dropping"?
[+] [-] jcims|4 years ago|reply
More examples here: http://www.astrophoto.fr/
Edit: That said there are some amazing amateur astrophotographers quietly going about their art. https://astrobin.com is their Flickr.
[+] [-] MisterTea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FpUser|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belter|4 years ago|reply
http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_atlantis_2010.jpg
"ISS distance to observer: 391 km. Speed in orbit: 7.4km/s (26500 km/h or 16500 mph)."
[+] [-] gattr|4 years ago|reply
https://www.astrobin.com/375799/?nc=all
(Taken with a 14" telescope. Good "astronomical seeing" conditions and necessary post-processing notwithstanding, the smallest resolvable details depend linearly on telescope's aperture (i.e., the primary optical element's diameter).)
EDIT: I also like this animation a lot, ISS crossing the sky (9.25" telescope):
https://astropolis.pl/topic/79691-przelot-iss-z-ogniskowej-2...
[+] [-] web007|4 years ago|reply
Turns out he (of course) saw this one, and thinks it's better than his own: https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/149619122880292454...
[+] [-] jcims|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|4 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/149514029055385600...
(alternatively https://nitter.net/thierrylegault/status/1495140290553856001)
[+] [-] fnsa|4 years ago|reply
Just ordered one for my kids!
[+] [-] throw0101a|4 years ago|reply
* https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
An RSS feed is available.
[+] [-] DonHopkins|4 years ago|reply
I've never seen a photo that reveals the roughness of the moon in profile like the high contrast craters and mountains along the edge.
[+] [-] deltarholamda|4 years ago|reply
The negotiations were tense, but in the end, the Space Station agreed to stop calling the Moon "crater face," and the Moon agreed to stop talking about Flat Earth Theory.
[+] [-] raxxorrax|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seba_dos1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|4 years ago|reply
My wife is a not-bad-for-an-amateur photographer of family events etc and any time she takes a good photo people ask "What camera did you use?"
I wonder if people used to go up to Shakespeare and say "Great play. What quill did you use?" Not that I'm comparing my wife to Shakespeare, but I could thrash around with an expensive DSLR for ages and not get a photo as good as a pro with an iphone 7. It's not the camera that makes a good photo.
[+] [-] mirkules|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martopix|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nullc|4 years ago|reply
Obligatory "here is the moon photo I took two days ago": https://litter.catbox.moe/5zj2s5.jpg
[+] [-] amne|4 years ago|reply
Just thinking of these and then add on top that you have 0.5s to take the photo. This was truly a "right moment, right place, right person" kind of thing.
[+] [-] sva_|4 years ago|reply
After ~2031, when the ISS is scheduled to be crashed into the ocean, the chances will tend to zero.
[+] [-] JaimeThompson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmilcin|4 years ago|reply
This photo is not a happy accident, though. It took careful preparation.
Let's see... it looks that at a distance of 400km we can see features of size roughly 1m (or even better). This points to resolution of 0.01 arcsecond which is fenomenal for an amateur setup.
[+] [-] spaetzleesser|4 years ago|reply
I have also done it in front of the moon but that’s way harder because you have less light and get slower shutter speeds resulting in motion blur.
[+] [-] carl_dr|4 years ago|reply
Those photos were within a couple of years of each other, obviously some time ago now.
[+] [-] potamic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmilcin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monkeydust|4 years ago|reply
"Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
[+] [-] nayuki|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] playcache|4 years ago|reply