A beautiful picture captured by a current arrival on the Worldwide House Station (ISS) reveals the night time lights of London gleaming from 250 miles up.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit — at 69 NASA’s oldest energetic astronaut — arrived on the station final week on his fourth journey to orbit.
“London glowing at night time,” Pettit wrote in a publish with the picture, which he shared on X (previously Twitter) on Wednesday.
London glowing at night time.
Nikon Z9, 200mm f2, 1/320 sec, ISO 25600 pic.twitter.com/okPZz6N05f
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) September 18, 2024
Pettit used a full-frame Nikon Z9 to take the picture. The focal size was 200mm, the aperture f2, velocity 1/320 sec, and ISO 25600.
Only a few days after arriving on the ISS, Pettit took a unprecedented picture displaying the Polaris Daybreak spacecraft coming into Earth’s ambiance at excessive velocity because it returned residence with 4 astronauts on the finish of a historic five-day mission.
The American astronaut captured equally placing pictures throughout his earlier visits to the ISS, and so his social media followers can count on to see loads extra great photographs over the course of his six-month house mission.
Pettit is especially adept at capturing dramatic star path photographs, like this one taken in 2012 with a Nikon D3s utilizing a 24mm lens and created utilizing a number of stacked 30-second exposures:
Star path from @Space_Station, with ghostly blue define of a photo voltaic panel.
A number of atmospheric layers are seen attributable to photo voltaic pushed excitation of atomic oxygen (inexperienced) and hydroxyl (-OH) radicals (orange-pink). The star trails turn into curved close to the horizon as a result of… pic.twitter.com/F9HUVcEf9e
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) July 19, 2024
He additionally likes to take near-infrared photographs, like this one captured in 2012 displaying a flora-packed river delta (proven in vibrant magenta) wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains. This picture was taken utilizing a modified Nikon D3s with a 180mm lens set at f/4.5 and ISO 400.
Camana, Peru area in close to infrared. Wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, this lush flora-packed river delta seems as vibrant magenta. Camana is the grayish function within the decrease middle of the river delta. That is in stark distinction to the sparse foliage in… pic.twitter.com/zXu6Gor1MF
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) September 1, 2024
Whereas most astronauts are completely satisfied to easily peer out of the ISS on the gorgeous surroundings a number of hundred miles beneath, a couple of, resembling Pettit, Matthew Dominick, and Thomas Pesquet, prefer to file what they see with a digicam. And we’re mighty glad they do.
