Solar powered: Amateur astronomer snaps space shuttle and telescope speeding across the sun
At first glance it appears like a giant tennis ball with a speck of dirt.
But this extraordinary image, taken by an amateur astronomer, shows the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Telescope passing in front of the sun.
It is the first time they have been photographed together making a ’solar transit’ and came several minutes before Atlantis made contact with the telescope and attached to it.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope are seen in silhouette (lower left hand corner). The sun appears ghostly because in order for the picture to be taken a prism attached to the camera filtered out most of the sunlight
In this close up of the above image, the Space Shuttle can be seen just above the Hubble Space Telescope
The shuttle has been sent up to do repairs on the Hubble for the fifth and final time. Astronauts on board are replacing the Wide Field Camera 2 and NASA hopes to get another five to 10 years of dazzling views of the cosmos from Hubble as a result of the upgrades.
NASA are launching the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014, which will replace Hubble once it becomes defunct.
The stunning images were taken by Thierry Legault, an engineer famed for taking pictures of space from his back garden in Paris.
These images, however, were taken from Florida, 60 miles south of the Kennedy Space Centre from where the Space Shuttle blasted off on Tuesday.
‘I brought the equipment from France with me,’ he told the Mail Online.
‘All calculations had been made by the specialized site www.calsky.com so that I knew weeks before when the transit would be visible from Florida.
‘Once there it only took a few minutes to install the telescope on a big video tripod.’
In this image only the silhouette of the Space Shuttle can be seen. It launched from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday and was pictured passing across the Sun on Wednesday
To be able to get any kind of picture Mr Legault faced a challenging set of circumstances.
Firstly he was photographing objects only 35m and 13m in length that were travelling at 15,5000mph at a distance of 370miles, as well as being against the full glare of the sun.
‘However, the greatest challenge was to chase a hole in the clouds that were numerous in the area because there are currently many thunderstorms over Florida. I had to take the photo just at the right instant,’ he told the Mail Online.
Thierry Legault in his back garden in Paris. The astrophotographer has captured impressive pictures of the sun
To achieve his images he only used his £8,000 Takahashi refractor telescope, a £2,000 21MP Canon camera and a Baader solar prism, which acts to reflect away most of the sun’s light.
The sun appears a ghostly yellow because the only about five per cent of the rays are permitted through the prism.
Finally Mr Legault used the lowest light sensitivity setting (ISO 100) and a very high shutter speed on his camera, exposing the sensor for only 1/8000 second.
‘Every time one of my photos works it is very satisfying, especially when it is of a unique event like this one,’ Mr Legault said.
The French engineer has been interested in astronomy ever since he saw Saturn’s rings through a telescope when he was 13.
He has captured spectacular snaps of Mars and Saturn, the craters on the moon and nebulas millions of light years away. His images have been published in books and magazines around the world.
His latest image reveals Atlantis performing a tricky manoeuvre to grapple on to Hubble. The astronaut crew have now been in orbit attached to the telescope for three days.
Astronaut Andrew Feustel works on the Hubble Space Telescope on the first of five STS-125 spacewalks
Yesterday mission specialists John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel overpowered a stubborn bolt and successfully installed a new piano-sized camera in the Hubble Space Telescope, the first step to making the observatory better than ever.
The repair job – all the more dangerous because of the high, debris-ridden orbit – got off to a slow and rocky start.
The pair had trouble removing the old camera from the telescope because a bolt was stuck. They fetched extra tools, but none seemed to work.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been in orbit 350miles above Earth since 1990
Finally, Mission Control urged the astronauts to use as much force as possible, even though there was a risk the bolt might break. If that had happened, the old camera would be stuck inside, leaving no room for its souped-up replacement.
‘OK, here we go,’ Feustel said. ‘I think I’ve got it. It turned. It definitely turned.’ And then: ‘Woo-hoo, it’s moving out!’
The extra effort paid off but put the astronauts a little behind schedule in their first spacewalk of shuttle Atlantis’ mission. In all, five high-risk spacewalks are planned to fix Hubble’s broken parts and plug in higher-tech science instruments.
Astronaut Mike Massimino, who is sharing his space experience on Twitter, is pictured on the flight deck of space shuttle Atlantis
Atlantis and its crew are traveling in an especially high orbit, 350 miles above Earth, that is littered with pieces of smashed satellites. A 4-inch piece of space junk passed within a couple miles of the shuttle Wednesday night, just hours after the shuttle grabbed Hubble. Even something that small could cause big damage.
For the first time, the shuttle Endeavour is on standby in case it needs to rush to the rescue.
Once the sticky bolt was freed, Feustel pulled out the old camera, the size of a baby grand piano.
‘This has been in there for 16 years, Drew,’ said Grunsfeld. ‘It didn’t want to come out,’ Feustel replied.
The spacewalkers followed up with the installation of the replacement camera. ‘Let there be light,’ Grunsfeld said as ground controllers checked the power hookups. Everything tested fine.
The Hubble Space Telescope will be replaced in 2014 by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope
From inside Atlantis, spacewalk overseer Michael Massimino congratulated Grunsfeld and Feustel for ‘adjusting to the curve ball that was thrown at you.’
With the spacewalk approaching the four-hour mark, the two quickly got started on their next chore, replacing a computer data unit that broke down last fall. Also on their to-do list: hooking up a docking ring so a robotic craft can guide the telescope into the Pacific years from now.
The newly inserted wide-field and planetary camera – worth $132 million – will allow astronomers to peer deeper into the universe, to within 500 million to 600 million years of creation.
Another two-man team will venture out today for the second spacewalk.
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