Air Traffic control usually direct RNAV equipped aircraft to follow a
STandard instrument ARival procedure or STAR. In this case the Rivet 3 RNAV STAR.

Terminal area aircraft navigation (RNAV) systems must maintain a total system error of
not more than 1 nautical mile for 95 percent of the total flight time.
RNAV delivers precisely positioned and more orderly air traffic flows.

The observatory from where the above image was taken is located just south
of the arrival waypoint labelled "Boogi" in the chart below.

Arriving aircraft above 6000 feet and approximately one nautical mile North of the Observatory
are (conveniently) at a very similar altitude to the Sun from 10:00 to 11:00am.
In this instance flight VA-827 occulted the Sun on its way into Sydney Airport.

The transit image was made by aligning several frames on the silhouette the passing aircraft,
rather than images of the Sun. By doing so, the successive frames reveal the complete profile of the jet.
A similar process is also used to determine the shape of astreoids that occult far more distant stars.

Astro-Physics AP130GTX + AP BARCON
Coronado 90mm Double-stack etalons + BF30
QHY533M

Chart Copyright Jeppesen 2020.

Image and Text Copyright Peter J Ward 2024