Science

‘Star Trails’ Captured in Awesome New Composite Image Taken From Space Station

Usually, we bring you time-lapsed videos taken from the International Space Station of the aurora borealis over Earth or North American cities at night, to name a few. One of the latest works of art from the space station is a composite photo created from 18 long-exposure images.

Composite Photograph of 18 Images From International Space Station Shows Star Trails

This single image is a composite of 18 individual images taken at a long exposure. (Photo: Don Pettit NASA/Flickr)

The photo is able to trace what Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit describes as star trails thanks to the exposure time that was allotted for the shot to be taken. Here‘s more on the image from NASA’s Flickr site:

“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,” [Pettit said.]

Composite Photograph of 18 Images From International Space Station Shows Star Trails

This composite photo is of 47 combined images. (Photo: Don Pettit NASA/Flickr)

The circles within the image, which Gizmodo describes as “trippy,” are the star trails. The dome at the bottom is Earth, above which the ISS is orbiting at 240 miles. The golden strips you see on Earth are lights from cities.

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