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Miguel Claro He is a professional photographer, author and science speaker based in Lisbon, Portugal, capturing stunning images of the night sky. European Southern Observatory Photography Ambassador And a member of The world at night And the official astronomical photographer of Dark Sky Alkiwa PreserveHe specializes in astronomical “celestial views” that connect the Earth and the night sky.
This image shows the silhouette of the International Space Station (ISS) as it crosses in front of the sun at a distance of 274 miles (441.5 km) from us and traveling at a speed of about 4.5 miles per second (7.31 km/s).
This image was taken from Figueira da Foz on the northern coast of Portugal on June 2, 2024, at 1:18 p.m. local time (1218 GMT), and lasted just 0.54 seconds. The video shows a time-lapse of 200 images taken over about two seconds.
The ISS transit of the Sun was difficult to see even with a special telescope equipped with hydrogen filters. I was only able to capture this rare moment, which happened in the blink of an eye, using a fast video camera from Player One Astronomy, Apollo-M Maxwith the camera shutter set to a high frame rate of up to 109 fps.
The images were processed individually without stacking, and I liked the quality achieved using only individual frames. The ISS appears white in the first sequence, due to the inversion technique used to process the sun’s color space images with greater depth. The second sequence shows the ISS black without this inversion.
Interestingly, it is possible to recognize the distinctive structures of the International Space Station in the image, including solar panels and modules. The image also shows in great detail jets of gas in the Sun’s outer atmosphere, large gas filaments and a large active region (or sunspot), as well as some solar protrusions around the Sun’s limb. Our Sun is 865,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) in diameter and is composed of 73% hydrogen, 25% helium and 2% heavier elements.
The International Space Station completes its orbit around Earth every 90-93 minutes. The orbiting laboratory, which houses an international crew of astronauts, is about 358 feet (109 meters) across. Although the ISS is fairly large in the sky, with an angular diameter of 62.58 inches, it appears very small when compared to the enormous size of the solar disk, which has an angular size of 31.6 feet. This makes the Sun appear about 30.3 times larger than the ISS at the moment this image was taken.
I hope you enjoy this image as much as I did, and if you would like to support my work as an independent artist, you can purchase this image as a print and piece of art or wall decor for your home! Explore the different size options and print types below or contact me if you need further assistance. I plan to create a limited edition Print Drop in the future that will be available in my Print Gallery. In the meantime, you can sign up for my newsletter to get early access.
Editor’s Update 1/7: The total transit time was 0.54 seconds, not 54 seconds. This article has been updated to reflect that.
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