Things on the Sun: Zipper, Airplane and Spots

By Nancy Atkinson - July 9, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy
sun-iss.jpg

Caption: ISS Solar Transit. Credit: Fred Locklear.

A couple of awesome pictures of the Sun today from amateur astrophotographers: Above is a composite view of the International Space Station transiting across the Sun, making it look like a zipper on the Sun's face. This great image is by Fred Locklear (

zAambOni on Flickr

) using a Celestron C6-N and a SPC900NC webcam. Also visible is the big region of sunspots that spewed out dozens of flares this past week. Fred took this image on July 1, 2012.

What else can we find on the Sun?

Caption: A plane crossing the Sun. Credit: Steve Scheer.

This incredible shot of an airplane crossing the Sun was taken by Steve Scheer on July 7, 2012. "Luck was on my side as I happened to go outside and saw a plane about 90 deg away from the Sun," Scheer wrote UT, "so I quickly setup the scope, pulled the battery off charge, fitted the camera to the scope, pointed to the Sun and crossed the fingers. Luckily the focus was already set from a previous Moon imaging session as I had literally seconds to spare."

More spots show up on this image including the monster new Active Region AR1520 on the left, which is larger than Jupiter.

Specs: Telescope- C102-HD refractor Camera- 500D with t-ring Solar filter

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you're giving us permission to post them). Please explain what's in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com