Seeing Sunspots

The following picture was taken in Normandy by French astrophotographer Thierry Legault with a digital camera and a seriously pimped-out telescope. Note the tiny speck on the left-hand side. Is that a sunspot? A speck of dirt on the lens? A UFO?

Nope. That's the Space Shuttle Atlantis sidling up to the International Space Station. Orbiting the earth at an altitude of 250 miles, these tiny, insignificant objects are silhouetted against the sun, which is about 93 million miles away.

Click on the picture for a closer look.




Cool stuff!