Video of the Space Station zipping across the Sun
5 Sep 2010, 13:00 UTC
This is pretty cool: back in July 2007, an amateur astronomer made a video of the International Space Station as it passed directly in front of the Sun:
Cool!
There’s a lot to note here:
1) Most obvious is the speed of the ISS. It orbits the Earth a mere 350 or so kilometers (220 miles) up; I like to say that if you live in DC and see it pass overhead, it’s about the same distance from you as New York City. So it’s actually pretty close to the Earth’s surface, and screaming around at 8 km/sec (5 miles/sec). That’s a good clip! From the point of view of someone watching from the ground, it only takes a couple of minutes for the station to go clear across the sky, horizon to horizon.
Also, the Sun is pretty small in the sky; you can easily cover it with your outstretched thumb. So the great speed of the ISS coupled with the small apparent size of the Sun means the entire pass will take less than a second!
2) The astronomer — Len Marek — wasn’t using a huge telescope to get this shot. He has a Coronado Maxscope 60, ...
