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Long Exposure Photographs Shot from Orbit
- whatgoodisaroad 14y agoThis is so Jupiter-and-beyond-the-infinite.
- zashapiro 14y agoThese are unreal. Thanks for sharing!
- allardschip 14y agoLike TRON!
- pcopley 14y agoEasily one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
- PaulHoule 14y agoNice to see NASA send artists into space!
- ktizo 14y agoI really want to see the sci-fi film 'Apogee of Fear' that they shot up there recently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_of_Fear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apogee_of_Fear
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- grecy 14y agoThe article says it's lightning.
- aw3c2 14y agocontent aggregator spam, go directly to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/72157629726792248/with/7257867240/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/72157629726... for the full set and info
- Dylan16807 14y agoThe page may not have all the images but I greatly prefer the layout of a big page of images to thumbnails or slideshow.
- treyp 14y agojust change the domain to flickriver: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/72157629726792248/ http://www.flickriver.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/7215762... photo size adjustment on the left
- kghose 14y agoBeautiful, simply beautiful. The field of lightning amidst the trails of night lights under the circle of stars is just breathtaking.
- btr41n 14y agoI'm constantly amazed by Don Pettit! Check out this SOTS video if you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlQPjvTkjok http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlQPjvTkjok
- adamsmith 14y agoCan anyone explain why the star trails make concentric circles? What's at the middle of the circles? I understand why you might see concentric circles in time elapsed photos from the North or South Poles on Earth, but why from space?
- ggchappell 14y agoThe center of the circles lies in the direction the camera is rotating about. I imagine the camera was fixed relative to the ISS, and the ISS always keeps the same side toward the Earth. If so, then the center of the circles would be the direction perpendicular to the orbital plane of the ISS.
- adamsmith 14y agoI agree that the camera is rotating. I guess the follow up question would be: why isn't the Earth rotating as well about the same axis?
- narag 14y agoThe most sensible rotation in the photo is the one of the ISS around Earth, not Earth's own rotation. The orbit doesn't need to be equatorial. (Edit:) About your other question: the middle of the circles is the ISS's orbit pole. (Edit 2:) OK, I get what you find weird: the fact that stars's circles and land ones don't have exactly the same pole. That's because Earth's rotation. IIRC, a very low orbit object makes a circle in 90 minutes. I guess IIS is higher so it would orbit in a few hours. In these few hours the traces of land lights result from the composition of orbit and rotation, while the star's one only from the orbit. An angle of, let's say 20% of ISS orbit with equatorial plane would explain the difference. BTW, I don't think the camera is rotating. Something, maybe an antenna shows in the photo against the star background. The ISS must be rotating in the same period of the orbit, so it always shows the same face to Earth's surface.
- ggchappell 14y ago> BTW, I don't think the camera is rotating. Something, maybe an antenna shows in the photo against the star background. The ISS must be rotating in the same period of the orbit, so it always shows the same face to Earth's surface. The camera would not be rotating with respect to the ISS. But the ISS, as you said, rotates with the same period as its orbit. The camera, being fixed to the ISS, therefore rotates with this same period in the same plane. So, yes, the camera is rotating; hence, the star circles.
- SonicSoul 14y agoincredible! can someone explain how the long exposure shot is taken, where the local light object (bulb) is not overexposed? everything seems to be perfectly exposed. the only thing i can think of was that this image was constructed from multiple shots taken at different exposures.
- mutagen 14y agoProbably, from the original set posted to flickr: “My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.” http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/72157629726792248/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/sets/72157629726...
- brfox 14y agoIs that why all the pictures have this faint dark line at even intervals perpendicular to all the city light lines? For example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/7216880452/in/set-72157629726792248/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa_jsc_photo/7216880452/in/se...
- ojilles 14y agoThats my guess as well. What's weird though is that either the rotations are going much faster than I thought, or the long-exposure noise reduction or something similar is still turned on. (Without that, a camera can effectively immediately take another 30s exposure, so why the interruption otherwise?)
- whyenot 14y agoThe astronaut who took these pictures, Don Pettit, is also an accomplished hardware hacker. He built his own barn door tracker[1] from spare parts at the station. A barn door tracker is basically a device that allows you to make long exposure pictures and by slowly moving the camera, keeps stars as points of light instead of trails (the opposite of these pictures). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_door_tracker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_door_tracker