Any use of one of these images other than strictly private must be subject to prior authorization from legault@astrophoto.fr

First image of a solar transit of Tiangong-1, the first module of the Chinese space station, taken from Southern France on May 11th 2012 at 07h54min 35s UT.
Transit forecast calculated by www.calsky.com.
Transit duration: 0.9s. Distance to observer: 540 km. Size of the station (without solar panels): 10.3x3.3m. Speed in orbit: 7.4km/s (26500 km/h or 16500 mph).
Takahashi FSQ-106 refractor, Baader Herschel prism and Canon 5D Mark II. Exposure of 1/8000s at 100 ISO, extracted from a series of 16 images (4 images/s) started 2s before the predicted time.

(click on the image for the full size version)

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