Photo de stock - USA -- Using the solar disk as a backdrop, its details revealed by a calcium-K optical filter, researchers processed this image to reveal shock waves created by a supersonic NASA T-38C jet (pictured here). In the wake of recent success with air-to-air schlieren photography using the speckled desert floor as a background, researchers at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, are now looking to the heavens for backgrounds upon which to capture images of supersonic shock waves using ground-based cameras. A bright light source and/or speckled background "such as the sun or moon" is necessary for visualizing aerodynamic flow phenomena generated by aircraft or other objects passing between the observer's camera and the backdrop. This patent-pending method, made possible by improved image processing technology, is called Background-Oriented Schlieren using Celestial Objects, or BOSCO -- Picture by Chris Neill/Atlas Photo Archive/USAF.