More awesome eclipse pics, including two with the ISS!

Let’s start off with the BBC’s fantastic coverage from the Faroe Islands, catching the diamond ring effect.  Best part is definitely the commentator’s obvious joy at seeing this.  She knew what to expect, clearly, but actually seeing it for herself was clearly an emotional event.

Oh, lord, I really want to see a total solar eclipse someday!  (2017!)

The ISS isn’t always favorably positioned to photograph eclipses, but this time it was.  Astronaut Samatha Cristoferetti was able to photograph it, with a Soyuz capsule in the foreground:

And then of course the inestimable Thierry Legault got the ISS from the ground along with the eclipse.  He recorded the ISS transiting the Sun.  😉  Since he wanted to get the ISS in the shot, he didn’t travel to the Faeroe Islands or Svalbard for the event; instead he traveled to Spain to be under the ISS’s shadow:

ESA’s Proba-2 satellite is in a sun-synchronous orbit that fortuitously put it very close to the path of totality.  It got this wonderful view:

NASA’s satellites weren’t ignoring the event.  The venerable Terra spacecraft was in a position to photograph the Moon’s shadow as well:

Here are some other great galleries you can go through to see some lovely eclipse pics:

SPACE.com: Total Solar Eclipse of 2015 in Amazing Photos

Spaceweather.com Realtime Image Gallery (note: this updates continuously, so be warned that if you look at it in three months, you’ll have a long slog to get to the eclipse pictures)

Yosemite’s Rim Fire, As Seen From Space

A tremendous wildfire is burning in California now, on the edge of Yosemite National Park.  It is hauntingly reminiscent of the Yellowstone fire in the late ’80s, although so far Yosemite itself is still mostly clear of fire, but this time we have far more eyes in the sky to look down on it.

The Aqua spacecraft’s MODIS instrument captured this visible-light image of the Rim Fire on August 26, 2013.

The Terra spacecraft’s ASTER sensor captured this infrared image on August 30, 2013. Green, unburned vegetation is highly reflective in infrared, so appears bright red in the picture.

Suomi NPP captured this image with its VIIRS infrared instrument, tracking the movement of the fire at night.

The Aqua spacecraft’s AIRS instrument collects data on aerosols; this globe is computed from a three-day average. The Rim Fire’s plum is very visible.

And Karen Nygren, aboard the ISS, took this picture out the Cupola windows on August 24.