Looking directly at the sun…
With thanks to photographer Thierry Legault, the only image ever taken of a transit of a space shuttle (Atlantis) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in front of the Sun– during the last repair mission of Hubble. Legault took the photo in Florida (100 km south of the Kennedy Space Center) on May 13th (at 12:17 local time), several minutes before grapple of Hubble by Atlantis.
See the full image here… and see other examples of Legault’s extraordinary “astrophotography” work here.
As we rub our eyes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1804 that Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of France– at least in part an unintended consequence of Britain’s declaration of war against France (again), exactly one year before, in response to Napoleon’s “activities” in Italy and Switzerland… (Napoleon formally crowned himself “Emperor Napoleon I” on December 2, 1804 at Notre Dame de Paris.)
