An Astronaut’s Incredible Photos of “Star Trails"

[likethebeer]

Looking at Earth from the International Space Station.

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit relayed some information about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: “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.”

Comments

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

That is freakin' amazing!!!!

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

Thanks to Slate. :-)

The stuff on the planet is what confused me. Are those planes?

[sirreal13.livejournal.com]

The yellow streaks look too bright to be ground lights. Nice effect, though. I'd like to see acouple short exposures to compare.

[maxchaos.livejournal.com]

Those are incredible!

Pretty neat

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like them, too. :-)