Universe Today
We've written many articles to share the
incredible astrophotography
of
Thierry Legault
, and have also
interviewed him
extensively about
his work
. If you've enjoyed his imagery and stories, you'll appreciate this new video interview from
VICE
which shows Legault at work, and allows him to tell his story in his own words.
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If you aren't familiar with the work of Legault, he has taken images such as the space shuttle and space station as they transited across the Sun, the first-ever ground-based image of astronaut in spacewalk, and images of spy satellites in orbit. He lives in the suburbs of Paris, but will easily travel 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers -- and sometimes to another continent -- to capture a specific image.
And usually, the events he captures last only about a half-second and he never sees them live with his own eyes.
"For transits I have to calculate the place, and considering the width of the visibility path is usually between 5-10 kilometers, but I have to be close to the center of this path," Legault explained in a
previous interview
with UT, "because if I am at the edge, it is just like a solar eclipse where the transit is shorter and shorter. And the edge of visibility line of the transit lasts very short. So the precision of where I have to be is within one kilometer."
Legault studies maps, and has a radio synchronized watch to know very accurately when the transit event will happen.
"My camera has a continuous shuttering for 4 seconds, so I begin the sequence 2 seconds before the calculated time," he said. "I don't look through the camera – I never see the space station when it appears, I am just looking at my watch!"
For a transit event, he gets get a total of 16 images – 4 images every second, and only after he enlarges the images will he know if he succeeded or not.
"There is a kind of feeling that is short and intense -- an adrenaline rush!" Legault said.
Enjoy the new video interview, and see Legault's imagery at
his website
.
