Interloper of the Venus Transit

I figured I was done posting Venus Transit pictures, but I should've realized I hadn't heard from Thierry Legault yet. And as soon as I saw his name in my email Inbox this morning, and before I even opened it, I knew I'd have at least one more picture to show you.

And I was right. Thierry is a master astrophotographer, and he's not one to just let an astronomical event go by without figuring out some way to make it even cooler. He traveled to northeast Australia to view the Venus transit... not just because it had a good view, but also because from there, he could see the Hubble Space Telescope transiting the Sun at the same time! On June 6th, at 01:42:25 UTC, he got this amazing shot:

Holy wow! [Click to doubletransitenate.]

You can see Venus as the big black circle, as well as dozens of sunspots. But you can also see multiple images of Hubble as it zipped across the Sun, circled in the image above. Orbiting the Earth, Hubble moves across the sky so quickly that it crossed the Sun in just under a second. Blasting his DSLR away at ten frames per second (and with an exposure time of only 1/8000th of a second per frame) Thierry managed to get 8 shots of Hubble silhouetted against the Sun.

Here's a bit of a close-up:

I added the arrows to help you see Hubble. The orbiting telescope was about 750 kilometers (450 miles) away from Thierry when he took these pictures (it was not directly overhead), so details on Hubble are too small to capture, but it can be seen as a black dot.

Theirry's done this before, too: in January 2011, he got an astonishing picture of the space station crossing the Sun during a partial solar eclipse! His ability to time these events and get pictures like these is nothing short of amazing.

He also says he got more pictures, too, including some of Venus just as it was entering the Sun's face. Hopefully he'll have those available soon! In the meantime, click the links below under Related Posts to see more of his ridiculously cool photos.

Image credit: Thierry Legault, used by permission.

Related Posts:

- Chinaâs space lab has a spot in the Sun
- Doomed ROSAT captured in video
- Atlantis, one last time in the Sun
- SERIOUSLY jaw-dropping pictures of Endeavour and the ISS!
- INSANELY awesome solar eclipse picture