Milky Way from the ISS - EDIT: Added Timelapse!

[pluto (Hugh)]

I just came across this and it occurred to me that I don't think I've seen a shot like this before from the ISS.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/fi...041e009477.jpg

Well it turns out there was many hundreds of frames taken during that sequence so I've chucked them together into a nice timelapse here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE2pUb6Cx5c

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Kinda ... spectacular

You notice ... no clouds !!

[Ric]

Awesome photo

Lucky beggars, they get all the breaks.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

needs flats - dust bunny bottom left - unless its some kind of ufo of course

but I agree, they always have their cameras pointing to earth, its nice to see a starfield from the station. i'm guessing it was quite a short exposure - holding the camera still may present an issue ...

[multiweb (Marc)]

Good framing. M8 really sticks out.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

i'm guessing it was quite a short exposure - holding the camera still may present an issue ...

The details on the pic are:
Nikon D3S
24mm f1.4
0.5 second exposure
ISO 12800

They have bracket mount things that they can attach around some of the windows, that's how they do the longer exposures in those famous timelapses that show the aurora and city lights etc.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Lots of little red planetaries.

H

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

Originally Posted by pluto

The details on the pic are:
Nikon D3S
24mm f1.4
0.5 second exposure
ISO 12800

They have bracket mount things that they can attach around some of the windows, that's how they do the longer exposures in those famous timelapses that show the aurora and city lights etc.

thanks for the details - that is short!
I thought the ones showing the aurora etc were outside the ISS but now that I think of it that doesn't really make sense.

[pluto (Hugh)]

I think there are video cameras outside like the HDEV stuff and UrtheCast.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload

[PeterEde (Peter)]

***** to align
12800iso hence all the hot pixels

[Draco (Draco)]

is that scorpious to the far right?

[N1 (Mirko)]

Scorpius is standing upright "on its head" on the left facing the horizon, very much like it does at the moment when it appears of a night. Suggests the ISS is somewhere over the Southern Hemisphere. The reddish star between the solar panels is Antares. The spout of the "Teapot" asterism is just above the Sagittarius Star Cloud, upside down.

The ISS foreground looks quite sharp for f/1.4, which hints at the dimensions of the thing.

Awesome shot, and awesome find.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by N1

Suggests the ISS is somewhere over the Southern Hemisphere.

The ISS was over the Nullabor when this shot was taken.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by pluto

The details on the pic are:
Nikon D3S
24mm f1.4
0.5 second exposure
ISO 12800

Presumably the ISS was in the Earth's shadow and is being illuminated by Moon glow or something equally dim, rather than being in daylight? (Half a second at ISO 12800 would "blow out" a bit for a daytime shot!)

[pluto (Hugh)]

A little more info on the timelapse images.
I got the images from here:
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/mrf.htm

Just scroll the "Mission" box right to the top and select "ISS041".
The frame numbers were from 8720 to 9492.

It should be possible to clean this up heaps as the majority of the noise is static dead pixels, if anyone's so inclined.

I also think someone could get a reasonable result by stacking 50 or so of the images featuring the Milky Way at the end

Awesome seeing all the other random satellites too

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

needs flats - dust bunny bottom left - unless its some kind of ufo of course

Actually it turns out that's a real object!
Some kind of target I guess...

[pluto (Hugh)]

Ok here's a quick stack of the last 52 frames of that timelapse. Not sure if I can be bothered fixing the ISS bit for now so here it is.

Bigger version here:
https://hughsblog.files.wordpress.co...tack2a_big.jpg