How’s about we start the day with a little jolt of wonder:
That’s the space shuttle Atlantis pulling away from the International Space Station. Cool enough on its own, but what makes this so wondrous is that the photo was taken from the ground and that it’s a shot of the two spacecraft transiting in front of the sun. Here’s the complete image:
Large versions of these images and details of how they were made can be found on the photographer’s website, along with a charmingly pastoral image of his telescope set-up. Thanks to Phil at Bad Astronomy for bringing this to my attention, and also for adding that “see ’em there” tag to the second image…
This is really amazing!
I thought so, too… the thing I found really amazing is that the photographer’s telescope doesn’t look all that big in the photo with the cows, at least it doesn’t look as big as I’d expect would be needed to make such distant objects appear so distinctly.
On a somewhat related note, I read an article the other day that says the new solar-panel array Atlantis just installed on the ISS could make the station as bright in the night sky as the planet Venus:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/060915_iss_watch.html