Here’s a cool story from California, where a United Airlines 777 crossed the path of the Sun at just the right moment.
United Airlines 777 Photobombs Sun
Andrew McCarthy is a California-based astrophotographer. On January 17th, he accidentally captured incredible photos and video of a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 crossing the path of the Sun.
View this post on Instagram
McCarthy was using a telescope fitted with a hydrogen-alpha solar filter, which isolates the sun’s chromosphere. McCarthy told the UK Daily Mail:
“During one of my batches, a plane happened to perfectly intersect the middle of the Sun. For me this is very rare. There are many photographers that set up near airports and plan for these shots, and get them easily. However I am far from an airport, and in my two years of shooting the Sun, this is the first time I’ve captured a plane like this.”
He added:
“I was shooting the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light, so as the plane passed you could see the contrails scatter the light from the Sun, while the plane was invisible unless covering the disc.
“Each image I capture of the Sun is a stack of thousands of shots, and I’ve perhaps done this hundreds of times, which would make this shot close to one-in-a-million to catch by accident like this.”
After doing some research, he found the flight he snapped was UA425, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 traveling from San Francisco (SFO) to Newark (EWR). Apparently, one of the pilots on the flight noticed the image on social media and reached out to McCarthy for a print.
Check out McCarthy’s Instagram page, which has some incredible images on it. The Instagram box above also includes the video of the plane briefly passing by.
Very cool.
Apparently, we are at a lull in the solar cycle. I can’t confirm that I see a single sunspot. But those solar prominences are beautiful! And the scattering by the contrails is cool, too (hmm … I’ll have to think more on what’s going on there; is that really scattering?),
Fun stuff for self-professed dorks like me to ponder, Matthew! Thanks for sharing!
Jet