Meet Thierry Legault, Award-Winning Astrophotographer

Forrest M. Mims III

The Citizen Scientist has been privileged to publish images captured by several of the world's best astrophotographers. This time we introduce Thierry Legault, an award winning astrophotographer who recently set out on a mission to photograph the silhouette of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble space telescope against the solar disk. When he succeeded, some of his spectacular images were published in leading newspapers and on the popular www.spacescience.com web site.

Figure 1. The silhouette of Space Shuttle Atlantis superimposed against the sun. Other images shown here also show the silhouette of the Hubble Space Telescope. Photograph by Thierry Legault.


Thierry's goal of capturing both Atlantis and Hubble during the recent repair mission was made difficult by the fact their orbits would not take them over his home in France. So he packed his Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope, solar filter and Canon 5D Mark II digital camera and headed for the Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of central Florida. From there Thierry observed and photographed three separate transits of the sun by Atlantis and Hubble.

On 13 May he captured the silhouette of both satellites as they passed before the sun some 600 km over Florida. The two satellites crossed the solar disk in only 0.8 second, and the Canon 5D Mark II captured both targets.

A photo of Thierry Legault and his telescope at the Kennedy Space Center with the shuttle Endeavor in the background is here.You can learn much more about this accomplished astrophotographer by visiting his web site to see his astonishing collection of images.

For more than five years The Citizen Scientist has published images by many fine photographers in "Gallery." If you have some first class photos, please consider sharing them with the amateur scientist community. All that's needed is the JPEG(s) and some information about the circumstances of the photo and the camera that was used. Photos and supporting material can be sent here.

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