Caught in transit

A close-up view of the Sun's surface shows a swirling, fibrous texture in deep orange and red, resembling flowing fur or fabric. A dark, arching loop of cooler gas curves across the center, and the tiny black silhouette of the space station, with its solar panels and modules visible, sits just to its upper right.

Tianyao Yang, taken from Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, China

The International Space Station transits the active Sun, captured here next to sunspot groups AR4498 and AR4500. The imager used software to model the station’s path to ensure it would cross those sunspot regions from the viewing location. The transit lasted 0.58 second, which the imager recorded at 135.3 fps with 0.3-millisecond exposures at a gain of 504 with 4-inch f/7.6 Hα solar telescope and 5x Barlow.