ISS transits the Sun

This white-light image shows the International Space Station transiting the Sun on 20 April 2013, at 17h 35min 32sec. It was captured from the Valmayor reservoir, in Valdemorillo, Madrid, Spain. The active sunspot group number 1726 is visible in the center of the image.

ISS crossing the Sun: frame stacking

The ISS crossed the limb of the Sun in ~1.2sec. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 500 in video mode (25fps, full HD) through a Messier R102 Optical tube with a Baader solar filter. A Coronado SolarMaxII 90 BF30, in piggyback, also recorded the transit. H-alpha images are still being processed.

ISS transit, movie in normal speed

ISS transit, movie in 4x slow motion

The observing team

Visible sunspots

The following mosaic was acquired on 14 October 2011 from ESAC with Michel's Celestron newtonian (1m focal, 20cm aperture) and a Baader film filter. Several sunspots groups (1314, 1316, 1317 and 1319) are visible in the image. Another smaller group is seen to the left of group 1319, but it quickly fainted in the following days. We named the group 1319 informally "the Canary Islands", due to the resemblance with the topography of these islands.

This other image was taken in H-alpha with the Solarmax Coronado and shows several dark filaments, along with the sunspots. This image can be compared with images on previous days (check this previous blog entry).

This last animation shows the position of the sunspots and other features in both visible and H-alpha wavelengths.