An astronaut reveals how amazing photos of Earth are taken from the space station

Astronauts visit the orbiting site of the space station’s seven-window observation module, which offers stunning views of Earth 250 miles below, and Major Thomas Pesquet, a current resident of the International Space Station, regularly shares stunning images of Earth on his Twitter accounts. Instagram AndTwitterAccording to a report,digital trend“Technical.

But getting those amazing photos isn’t just about looking at the dome and hoping for the best.

Current astronauts usually use a camera Nikon D5 DSLR With a telephoto lens to photograph the Earth, but as pointed out biscuits In a recent post on the Internet, it takes a lot of preparation to increase the chances of taking a great photo.

“Good image planning is half the job, and for us it starts with our navigation program,” said the astronaut, who arrived at the International Space Station in April. future.

Bisquet said he’s also planning several of his photos before he leaves Earth, saving himself time once he gets to the space station..

According to the astronaut, whose current mission ends in October 2021, many people think we can take a picture of a specific place on Earth under command, but it’s much more difficult than that. First of all our orbits mean that we only fly over certain areas periodically. Second, even if we fly over an area of ​​interest, it could be during the night, so there would be nothing to see unless it was a city with bright street lights.

The two biggest obstacles to taking the desired image are cloud cover and work schedule, as astronauts on the International Space Station spend most of their time working on scientific experiments..

“We often pass over areas while working, we can’t give up everything we do at 14:35 for example just because we really want to take a picture of a city or a mountain or some other wonder of the Earth, even if the stars align and we have the time and orbits,” Pesquet explained. The weather is on our side, and we still need to locate the target from 400 km above it and set up the camera settings properly.