From late October to early December a surprising number of aircraft arriving into Sydney International Airport
literally "photo-bomb" solar observations from Barden Ridge Observatory, flying directly in front of the Sun.

Uninterrupted, the imaging runs typically consist of 2000 frames, of which the sharpest
images are stacked and processed to produce a solar disk image with sharp chromospheric details.
It is called "lucky imaging" , as by taking thousands of images, a few will be very likely free
of atmospheric turbulence that typically distorts an image
("lucky" in this case is not catching a passing aeroplane by chance ).

During "transit season" the Sun's mid morning altitude & azimuth
closely matches that of arriving aircraft,
following the Rivet 4 STandard instrument ARrival
(or STAR) for landings on runway 34L into Sydney

Due their low altitude, the angular size of even a Boeing 737often exceeds that of the Sun
being vastly larger, but 150 million kilometres more distant (as seen in the animated .gif images above).

To make out the entire airframe, the above composite images were assembled
from successive, stacked & aligned video frames, not referencing the Sun
but instead the silhouette of the aircraft, which creates multiple solar disks behind it.

As theses chance transits demonstrate,
the shadow of humanity lingers even in the
most unlikely places that you set your gaze.

Coronado 90mm double stack, Beloptik ITF, AP130GTX, QHY533m

Images and text copyright Peter J Ward 2025

STAR chart copyright Jepperson 2025. Not for operational use.