Stunning Time Lapse of the Earth From the ISS

The Bad Astronomer writes "Science educator James Drake took 600 still photos from the International Space Station as it orbited the Earth, and created a fantastic time-lapse animation out of them. It must be seen to be appreciated; storms and cities fly past below in amazing clarity."

Comments

the video was spectacular

[planimal]

seeing bolts of lightning from space was awfully sublime

Re:the video was spectacular

[ajo_arctus]

I was amazed at just how much lightning was in that video. It never occurred to me until now that there would be so many thunderstorms going on all over the world all of the time. This is a rare video where the superlatives in the headline (amazing, fantastic etc.) are well and truly justified.

Re:the video was spectacular

[camperslo]

Direct youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mhQyuyELQ

Re:the video was spectacular

[instagib]

The HD version is awesome. More FPS and longer would be appreciated! :-)

In the 90s there was a great late night program on German TV called "Space Night / Earth Views". While obviously only SD, those were mesmerizing films with perfect ambient/chill background music. Examples (headphones recommended):
Earth Views 6 Intro
Earth Views 4 Excerpt

Re:the video was spectacular

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

In the 90s there was a great late night program on German TV called "Space Night / Earth Views". While obviously only SD, those were mesmerizing films with perfect ambient/chill background music.

It's again on every night on both "Bayerisches Fernsehen" and "BR-alpha".

Re:the video was spectacular

[kilodelta]

Yes indeed, I noticed that too. I also noted how lit up most of the Earth is at night. Talk about a big, glowing target!

Re:the video was spectacular

[Doc Ruby]

The US should run NASA videos and slideshows of space imagery all the time, seeding news and talk shows with them as "news events". We'd get a lot more people appreciating the truly elevating work we spend so relatively little to get from NASA. In fact NASA should probably get a half-billion bucks a year just to mail a DVD to every American household at Christmastime.

Instead all we get is the terminally boring NASA TV channel, and only on some cable systems (Cox in New Orleans, but not any in the NYC area). Germans do get it, or at least they did in the 90s. WTF.

Re:the video was spectacular

[Anonymous Coward]

Related downloads:
www.wupload.com/file/w867/103479450/Space_Night_-_Earth_Views_4-5.divx
rapidshare.com/files/401462612/Earth_views.mov

Re:the video was spectacular

[riverat1]

According to Wikipedia there are 44 +/- 5 lightning bolts per second on the Earth.

Re:the video was spectacular

[Spikeles]

http://webflash.ess.washington.edu/

Re:the video was spectacular

[TapeCutter]

Also checkout the atmospheric lensing of the stars in the background.

Re:the video was spectacular

[sznupi]

Too bad one other curious sight given by the ISS to its occupants is missing, aurora:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aurora_Australis_From_ISS.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aurora_Borealis.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aurora_Borealis_from_Expedition_6.ogg

Also, I won't complain if the next attempt would be less jerky... if not by longer exposures (which would introduce some motion blur, but probably also make lightning less visible), then at least by capturing photos more often.

Re:the video was spectacular

[Old Wolf]

There's a video response where the guy has edited it to look smoother and clearer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdDEpC0uHWI&feature=watch_response

Re:the video was spectacular

[DCFusor]

You obviously haven't spent anytime listening to shortwave or longwave radio -- so you're a good little sheeple only checking the mainstream media. Yes, there is tons of lightning going on around the earth 24/7, and you know what? At LF, and in the right ionospheric conditions, the radio noise goes around and around the earth, like in a giant echo chamber. The period is such that it echoes at about 7 Hz. Pretty cool the first time you hear the effect on lightning, or on some LF radio station. Not very good for intelligibility, though. With an I and Q type receiver, you can even here it in stereo reverb...

Re:the video was spectacular

[Myopic]

Indeed, and most of the lightning doesn't even come down and contact the Earth; most lightning, and the biggest lightning, jumps between clouds, as shown in the video.

Re:the video was spectacular

[agentgonzo]

Also checkout the atmospheric lensing of the stars in the background.

I thought that was Airglow

Re:the video was spectacular

[justforgetme]

exactly what I wanted to point out. At first I thought "Hey this Lightning looks almost too bright and quite high alt" but then some reading made it all clear.

BTW: what is the yellow arc/layer in the video?

Re:the video was spectacular

[RoLi]

Did anybody recognize over which area the ISS flew in the video?

Re:the video was spectacular

[Petaris]

According to the description from the Youtube video its Earth's ionoshpere.

"Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line) and the stars of our galaxy."

Re:the video was spectacular

[wildstoo]

From TFV:

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line) and the stars of our galaxy. Raw data was downloaded from;

The Gateway To Astronaut Photography of Earth
"http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/mrf.htm ".

Virtualdub was used to create the final movie.

Re:the video was spectacular

[wildstoo]

It's different. Watch the stars as they pass through the atmospheric layer. They're brighter within it, thanks to atmospheric lensing. Some aren't even visible after they pass above the yellow arc.

Re:the video was spectacular

[jhigh]

I was wondering the same thing. It would be nice if there was another version of the video with labels or something that popped up and indicated what location was being flown over at the time.

Re:the video was spectacular

[netsharc]

Look in the YouTube description, it's there... it started over the Pacific Ocean, around 0:11 I think you can see SF and LA, and it continued to Central and South America, ending with the sunrise around Antarctica.

Re:the video was spectacular

[theGreater]

This is so beautiful, it hurts.

Re:the video was spectacular

[tehcyder]

You obviously haven't spent anytime listening to shortwave or longwave radio -- so you're a good little sheeple only checking the mainstream media.

And, of course, you're using the radio to fight for freedom and justice around the world. It's good of you to stop off from saving the planet to post here on slashdot.

Clue: anyone using the word sheeple instantly loses any credibility.

Re:the video was spectacular

[Anonymous Coward]

You used it.

Direction

[Anonymous Coward]

This is awesome! I'm trying to figure out what part of the earth this is imaging. My best guess is going from the north to south pole along the western side of the Americas, starting somewhere near Vancouver/Seattle passing Mexico, down along Chile, and ending as it gets to Antarctica. Can anyone confirm this?

Re:Direction

[artor3]

I agree it looks like it's flying over the western side of the Americas at first, but I think it must then turn towards the east. You would never see the sun rising over Antarctica, and all of the satellite path maps always look like wavy lines against the Mercator projection, so it would make sense for the ISS to turn east as it approaches the southern tip of South America.

Re:Direction

[vell0cet]

Remember, the earth is revolving while the ISS is orbiting, so it will be very confusing to try to figure it out by watching that video. It's not like the earth is standing still while the ISS orbits.

Re:Direction

[Extremus]

Agreed. I just disagree on the Antarctica bit: in my opinion the video ends when the ISS start to "turn" into South America. The blackout region to the left, near the end of the video, seems to be the Amazon forest. As a matter of fact, the ISS is in this same path right now (2011-09-18 20:22 UTC).

Re:Direction

[Kagura]

It takes 90 minutes to orbit the earth at the ISS' altitude. The earth only rotates 22.5 degrees out of 360 degrees. That's 6.5% of one full rotation. The earth is basically standing still as far as the space station is concerned over one orbit.

Re:Direction

[RoFLKOPTr]

This is awesome! I'm trying to figure out what part of the earth this is imaging. My best guess is going from the north to south pole along the western side of the Americas, starting somewhere near Vancouver/Seattle passing Mexico, down along Chile, and ending as it gets to Antarctica. Can anyone confirm this?

The description on YouTube says:

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line) and the stars of our galaxy.

Re:Direction

[Baloroth]

However, the ISS orbits once every 1.5 hours, so the Earth's revolution would be pretty insignificant in this video (which looks like about half an orbit). Still very confusing, since the ISS is in a LEO making the overall patterns difficult to see. That and the cloud cover obscuring lots of details. My best guess agrees with the OP, it seems to be going from somewhere near the arctic along the west coast of the US (you can make out the coast of California pretty clearly, and see Central America) and what I'm pretty sure is the length of Chile down at the bottom. It isn't completely polar. Orbital dynamics, however, are pretty complex.

Re:Direction

[icebike]

At 18 seconds in they play east of the Gulf of California over central mexico.
31 seconds Veracruz
35 seconds, Panama appears on left edge

Re:Direction

[dhall]

From the youtube video description:

This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and the Amazon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mhQyuyELQ

Re:Direction

[ScottForbes]

This page shows the orbit of the ISS. I believe what we're seeing is:

0:00 - Seattle / Vancouver as a dot on the horizon at left.
0:05 - Left to right: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco.
0:12 - ISS passes over land slightly north of San Francisco, moving toward Las Vegas; Los Angeles and San Diego on the right.
0:16 - ISS passes almost directly over Las Vegas (bottom center).
0:18 - ISS passes almost directly over Phoenix. Gulf of California on the right; Dallas and Houston on the horizon at far left.
0:28 - Mexico City. Gulf of Mexico on the left, Pacific Ocean on the right.
0:34 - Central American coast flyby, complete with tropical storms.
0:43 - South American coast flyby: Colombia, then Ecuador, then Peru.
0:51 - Lima, Peru.
0:55 - Border between Peru and Chile. The station's orbit begins to curve inland (eastward).
0:58 - Valparaiso and Santiago on the horizon at right (behind the solar panels after 0:59).
0:59 - Buenos Aires, Argentina is just appearing on the horizon (top center) as the video ends.

So I don't think Antarctica is ever visible - the station's orbit starts to turn eastward before that happens.

Re:Direction

[Anonymous Coward]

> I agree it looks like it's flying over the western side of the Americas at first, but I think it must then turn towards the east.

Huh? The space station can't "turn towards the east," it's in orbit. What, do you think it has a steering wheel? :)

Awesome Lightning

[Haedrian]

Lightning looks really impressive from up there. Shame its not as good down here.

Re:Awesome Lightning

[mywhitewolf]

? i've seen some amazing lightning storms that give you the "wow" factor every bit as much as this footage. perhaps you don't live in a particularly stormy area?

Re:Awesome Lightning

[scubamage]

Agreed - hard to believe this is from still frames.

Re:Awesome Lightning

[pairo]

Agreed - hard to believe this is from still frames.

Just like it's hard to believe any movie is made up by still frames?

Re:Awesome Lightning

[scubamage]

Each frame is approximately 2.4 minutes apart if he spaced it evenly across 24 hours. The lightning appears to be completely concentrated and flows just like a normal video. That is amazing, and hard to believe.

Re:Awesome Lightning

[Coren22]

More like 45 minutes worth of video. The ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, and this is about a half orbit.

just one word

[cyberfin]

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

These things always help putting the world and its issues into perspective.

Priceless

[rainer_d]

So that's what those rich people pay for...

Re:Priceless

[Doc Ruby]

You mean every American taxpayer? We're hardly all rich. Only the tiniest percentage of us are. And they don't pay taxes.

Re:Priceless

[Teancum]

Partially agreeing with the grandparent post, I'd agree that particular view would be worth seeing for about $20-$40 million, assuming I had that kind of money. It would be especially worth watching from the Cupola of the ISS or something similar. That several wealthy people have paid that sort of price for the privilege, I'd have to say that particular view of the Earth is precisely what those folks are paying that kind of money to see.

Re:Priceless

[flydpnkrtn]

Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin

Also your signature is incorrect... edlin is loosely based on Unix ed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)#Features

A more accurate statement would be "Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us VMS" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler#VMS )

Re:Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the richest 1% pay more taxes (dollar-wise) than the bottom 95%. At least that's the 2007 data from when obama was running claiming they paid almost nothing.

Re:Priceless

[Doc Ruby]

Well, they're paying to feel the view.

The rest of us are paying to just see it. And paying most of the cost for the rich people to hitch a ride.

Re:Priceless

[Doc Ruby]

Actually they pay a lot less, percentage-wise. Which is what matters.

Re:Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

that entirely depends on your definition of "rich"....

Re:Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

Um...no. Where did you get the idea that he was talking about the American taxpayer? I think that you are letting your politics intercept all of your thought processes. He was referring to space tourism

Re:Priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

So that must have been the view from those darn rich corporate space station owners then, eh? At least the Democrats, er, Progressives, change their referenced vehicle the "fat cats" use to travel in...kind of like Jefferson Airplane-->Starship.

Re:Priceless

[Doc Ruby]

The American people paid most of what those pics from the ISS cost. That's where I got the idea: from the reality of who paid for that.

But it does appear they might have been talking about space tourism. Which is also mostly paid for by the American people.

So while that post might have been talking (unclearly) about space tourists, it implies that rich people are paying for what the American people are paying for. Which is indeed more interesting to me than what rich people get for their ticket price.

Interesting

[deathcow]

I thought they weren't going to fly over Compton/Los Angeles anymore at nighttime after the Soyuz-jackings last year?

Re:Interesting

[houghi]

What is so special compare to the rest of the world that they can;t fly over it? OK, I could understand that they do not care about any other country in the world, but any other place in the US?

Also: what does 'flying over' mean? How many miles should they avoid it on each side?

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a joke.

Re:Interesting

[instagib]

I'm not sure how it is possible, but I think I just heard the ISS whoooshing by.

Re:Interesting

[Dr Herbert West]

Not everyone is from the U.S-- so jokes about dangerous neighborhoods in the US fall flat.

In short, Compton ( a neighborhood in Los Angeles) is often associated with high levels of street crime-- in particular car-jacking/stealing. Hence, the "soyuz-jacking" reference.

Re:Interesting

[phx_zs]

This joke went further over @houghi's head than the ISS

Re:Interesting

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Thank you Captain obvious.
Note: I am not an American.

Populous

[Anonymous Coward]

That was just Populous: The Beginning, with better graphics.

The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

In fact, I looked it up, Wikipedia has the ISS in a 53 degree inclination orbit. I can't make heads-or-tails of what I'm seeing in the video either.

It certainly isn't going pole-to-pole, though.

Re:The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Find out what city has green lights (0:32 seconds in the video) and you'll find your continent.

Re:The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every city I've been to has green lights - that's how I was able to drive through the cities.

Re:The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[somersault]

It says right in the YouTube description, though yeah I guessed correctly where it was as it passed Mexico, that little sliver of land between North and South America is fairly recognisable even when it's "upside down" :p

Re:The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[martin-boundary]

Heh, I've only been to cities with red lights...

Re:The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[riverat1]

I think AC if right about tracking down the west coast of the Americas. It looks like the first big city you see is probably Vancouver, BC, Canada, then the Puget Sound region, on to Portland. I live in Oregon and the placement of the cities south of Portland look just right to me. If you look at a globe the 53 degree inclination is about right to track down the coast. Here is a page that shows the ISS track.

Re:The ISS isn't in polar orbit is it?

[wildstoo]

I think that's Guatemala City.

You know what would be cool?

[The Creator]

If we got everyone to shut of their lights and not answer radio calls from ISS for a day. Just to mess with their heads!

Re:You know what would be cool?

[ericloewe]

Or we could hook them up to an answering machine: "Your call is important to us..."

Re:You know what would be cool?

[scubamage]

I'm sure there has to be a Ray Bradbury story about this somewhere.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[FlyingGuy]

I think It would have to be pre-planned waaaaaaaaaay in advance.

I wonder what would happen at power plants if everyone removed power from any outdoor photon emitting device a at the same time?

Re:You know what would be cool?

[FlyingGuy]

The Magrethea answering machine would be appropriate, especially on the second call.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Robert Zenz]

Reminds me of Love. Though, I haven't seen the movie by now, but I'd like to as soon as possible.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[Talderas]

Sadly, and I say sadly because I am love to admit I've watched this movie, it sounds much like the book that John Cusack's character wrote in that horrible movie 2012.

Re:You know what would be cool?

[krakelohm]

Hello this is Peeeegy...

I have a boner

[Anonymous Coward]

...in honor of Carl Sagan.

Fitting

[DigitalGodBoy]

Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

Always a good perspective check

Re:Fitting

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup - I started the OurPaleBlueDot project to help folks from low-income, conflicted, etc countries take their own look at the curve of the earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gn9tuttCQg

If a handful more of children a year change their perspective to more global; it's a success

Light pollution

[Jmc23]

It's a little sad to see all that light pollution. I wonder my children eill ever be able to see the milky way... without having to pay for a space trip.

What i found most interesting was all the thunderstorms aligned over large distances.

Re:Light pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many places even in the USA where the night is pitch black and you can see the Milky Way with zero light pollution. It's much easier to go the NE New Mexico than into orbit.

Re:Light pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never been camping, have you?

Re:Light pollution

[pyrosine]

I think if they can afford a space trip, and they are affordable, it is an acceptable price to pay for light pollution - especially since with it comes exploration of space and even extraterrestrial colonies

Re:Light pollution

[nmb3000]

It's a little sad to see all that light pollution. I wonder my children eill ever be able to see the milky way... without having to pay for a space trip.

As others mentioned, there are plenty of places you can go that still offer a pristine view of the night sky. Light pollution drops off pretty rapidly as you get away from the source.

This summer we had a mini family reunion at my uncle's cabin in southwest Montana. Possibly the best part for me was getting away from the city and seeing the night sky the way it is truly meant to be seen. The sheer number of stars and their brightness is mind-boggling and yet so easily lost and forgotten in even a smaller city. When you see the stars, planets, and galaxies (including our own) laid out above you it is so easy to understand why ancient humans gave so much thought and concern over the heavens. It's impossible to look at that and not start thinking about all kinds of possibilities (and start feeling very small).

One thing I found surprising was the astounding number of satellites visible from the ground. They move across the sky at a pretty fast clip and there are so many. At one point I could see 5 in the sky at the same time, all moving different directions. Very neat.

Re:Light pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

... you realise a lot of that was photoshop'd right?

Re:Light pollution

[smellotron]

I think if they can afford a space trip, and they are affordable, it is an acceptable price to pay for light pollution

How about we get affordable space trips and reduce our light pollution? For starters, we can stop pointing so many lights up.

Re:Light pollution

[dudpixel]

Light pollution? so light is bad now? someone tell the sun...

Re:Light pollution

[Sepodati]

While traveling through NM this summer at night, I made a point to stop in the middle of nowhere and turn off all of my lights. The view was amazing and you could clearly and easily see the Milky Way. It was actually kind of spooky with how pitch black it was out in the middle of nowhere. The mind starts playing tricks on you quite quickly... :)

Re:Light pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

Most interesting about the light pollution, was the fact that over one of the big cities, the orange light was reflecting in the panels at the top of the picture.

Re:Light pollution

[Coren22]

The government was able to take a pretty good picture of you from those sats. They ask that in the future, you wear a hat.

Re:Light pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

As an amateur astronomer I would say there are fewer and fewer places with zero light pollution, and they are far enough away that it makes them a pain to get to.

In Southern California, for example, there is no place that does not have some light pollution. When you get out from cities the cities still have 'light domes' visible from long distances, and there is still a diffuse glow that decreases contrast of the whole sky. The faintest stars will be harder to see. (A trip to Joshua Tree or Mt. Pinos is still spectacular!)

About 15 years ago I took my first telescope, a Celestron C8, on an expedition to Bishop, California, east of the Sierra Madre mountain range. As I drove away from the Los Angeles megalopolis light dome, the Las Vegas light dome took it's place. From LA all the way to Bishop, the sky in the Southern direction was washed out up to 20-30 degrees above the horizon. And there aren't even any major cities south of Bishop to do that!

There is a hope: the price of oil will skyrocket, making lighting the night sky too expensive.

There is fear: LEDs will make light 'too cheap to meter.' Or, we will switch to nuclear energy, and the sky will glow for other reasons.....

A-mommy-ness

Wow...even at that height,

[Anonymous Coward]

you can see the thin line of pollution that we create that circles the earth. No wonder the earth is melting away with the global warming. I'll be surprised if the earth is viable for my grand kids.

Re:Wow...even at that height,

[Dr Herbert West]

Not to be a climate-change denier or whatever, but is that really what that is? Citation? I had assumed it was more likely some kind of magnetic halo, or something like the northern lights, or light pollution bouncing off the atmosphere. I'm not a climatologist, obvs. Anyone here know what that "halo" is?

I live in L.A, so my experience of pollution is that it's brown, not a pretty green/yellow color.

Re:Wow...even at that height,

[Jesus_666]

The description on YouTube says that it's the ionosphere. So unless we count the sun and its light as pollution I don't think that line qualifies.

Re:Wow...even at that height,

[fahrbot-bot]

I live in L.A, so my experience of pollution is that it's brown, not a pretty green/yellow color.

I'm not an expert and I don't know if what's seen in the video is all pollution, but different chemical and particulate pollutants inhabit (for lack of a better word) different altitudes. The brown haze you see in LA probably mostly soot from vehicles, power plants, and other things burning somewhere or other chemicals that filter the sunlight. From the page on smog:

Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley

Being in low basins surrounded by mountains, Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley are notorious for their smog. The millions of vehicles in these basins plus the added effects of the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles/Long Beach port complexes contribute to further air pollution....

It deserves the hyperbole

[jthill]

For the first time, I wondered why we can't mod stories up.

Re:It deserves the hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

Because "we" don't know about the firehose?

Re:It deserves the hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the same thing. Think about it.

I don't have time to watch all that...

[mutube]

Executive summary

Some of us have jobs to do you know.

Re:I don't have time to watch all that...

[johanatan]

Umm, I watched them both because it's a weekend and neither was significantly longer or shorter than the other. One arguably had greater intrinsic artistic merit.

Re:I don't have time to watch all that...

[Zibodiz]

That, my friend, was the funniest thing I've seen all day.

Re:I don't have time to watch all that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your executive summary is too long and complicated. may i suggest this executive executive summary:

Mostly harmless.

Excuse me now, I have a hyperspace bypass to complete.

Re:Alright

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple years ago, My frat bros rented a zero-gravity plane. Some of them took girlfriends/fuck buddies up for some gravity free pussy. That didn't work out, but one did get a zero-gravity hummer :). I bet a 69 would be less awkward than on Earth.

I jacked off and shot a pretty impressive roper, if I do say so myself.

Needless to say, we were banned.

We videotaped it, though. If I can find a copy, I'll upload it.

Re:Alright

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say is 'Hahahahaha, NICE!' :)

constant streaming

[roman_mir]

there should be live streaming of the planet done constantly by many satellites at different latitudes/longitudes, resolutions, frequencies, all sorts of options.

Re:constant streaming

[jthill]

There's the ISS live stream which isn't on 24/7 and isn't always an Earth view then, but it's the best I've found. Plays with VLC on linux, too. On Windows you can make the live video your desktop. That's, uhhh, distracting.

Re:constant streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

"connection refused" on the link.

Re:constant streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Dish network has a channel that is a feed from one of it's satellties.
Often it looks like crap (poor resolution & much of time washed out by the sun)
but sometime there are some cool views (and kind of neat knowing it is "live")

Low FPS

[samkass]

Man, reality has low FPS.

Re:Low FPS

[deains]

Guess he should've brought a bigger SD card. Do Amazon deliver to low Earth orbit?

Re:Low FPS

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdDEpC0uHWI still waiting on the 1080p from youtube but should be nice enough:)

Re:Low FPS

[bill_mcgonigle]

Double-wow!

Finally!

[GodGell]

Out of all the dozens of ideas I've had that others realized and made millions, this is certainly the one I'm glad someone else also thought of.

Just this week I was thinking about ways to get a tiny probe into space whose only purpose would be photography. NASA (understandably) doesn't waste too much of their tiny bandwidth (and mission time) to transfer large photos; but what if that was the mission's only purpose?
We could create a timelapse of all of Humanity making their rounds around the Sun. We could take a shot of Earth setting above the thin atmosphere of Mars.
We could park it in geostationary orbit around Europa and make a timelapse of it circling around Jupiter, perhaps even witnessing the expansion and compression it experiences in doing so... the possibilities are endless.

If only I could convince Canon or Nikon to sponsor the century's publicity stunt.

Re:Finally!

[rgbatduke]

You mean aside from their many-times-a-day global photographs of the weather of the world, available on almost any weather site?

For example: http://classic.wunderground.com/tropical/ and scroll down to the latest atlantic still photograph. If you wait too long, BTW, you'll get infrared by default -- you only get clouds per se during daylight so that you can see them.

Or then, there are the many military satellites that can take amazingly high resolution pictures of the surface almost anywhere, to the point where sunbathing nude in your back yard is a chancy proposition if you really don't want anybody to see your ass...

There are, however, ways for even amateurs to get a camera "into space". The traditional one is to buy a weather balloon and use it to haul your camera to 20+ miles, at which point the earth looks pretty much like "earth from space" -- black sky, curvature, clouds. There are some lovely pictures that have been taken this way if you google for them.

rgb

Re:Finally!

[cwebster]

NASA already has many satellites in orbit that take pictures. Its not live streaming, but you can easily download the data and look at it for yourself. Their cameras aren't just restricted to the visible spectrum (in fact, that is probably a minority), but the cloud tracking projects definitely have visible data from a polar orbiter. The Terra satellite (i think its that one) takes something like 9 pictures along its orbit at different angles to the earth so that cloud height and motion can be determined (correct parallax and drift using multiple images of the same location taken from different angles). For the non visible wavelengths you'll find infrared, water vapor, land use, and many other images.

Re:Finally!

[GodGell]

But what about all the other planets? Most probes don't waste bandwidth on sending more than a few pictures back, and I doubt they would ever change trajectory (or match speed with a moon/planet) just for composition.

Re:Finally!

[cwebster]

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/index.html

Those are just two missions that come to mind.

For your proposal, I think you underestimate the complexity and equipment needed to launch a probe and have it captured into a geostationary orbit (you want to "match speed") of a moon of another planet. Also note that geostationary orbits are very high altitude orbits over the equator. For decent pictures you need to do what the ISS is doing and use a lower orbit (polar or other inclination), but in that case you wont "match speed" anymore and will have to deal with the body moving underneath you (from your reference frame).

At the costs involved you'll probably want to put more than just a nikon and a big lens on your probe.

Re:Finally!

[Spikeles]

MODIS Rapid Response has 2.5 hour lag images from both Terra and Aqua.
Don't forget to check out their interactive mapping service while there.
And a link for all their services.

Re:Finally!

[GodGell]

Obviously, I was oversimplifying, but given the amount of probes we've already sent out there, it can't be that hard. There's nothing wrong with having scientific instruments and sensors on the probe too of course; the point is just that photography would be the #1 priority (and bandwidth user) for this probe. We'd need to design radiation-proof lens elements and one very special DSLR for this, too. But the idea is basically just this: we've already gone there... now let's go there and take all the amazing pictures possible.

Thanks a lot for the links, I will definitely have fun looking through them! :-)

Green city?

[luisdom]

What's the green light seen on sec. 30?

Re:Green city?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't see the yellow brick road from this altitude, but......

Re:Green city?

[reverseengineer]

Looks Veracruz has predominantly mercury vapor lighting, as opposed to the yellow-orange sodium vapor lighting seen in most of the other cities. Tokyo at night from space glows greenish blue for this reason, anyway. There's an discussion of this (and of other effects seen in pictures of cities at night taken from orbit) here: Cities At Night

Re:Green city?

[rocketPack]

Kind of looks like a toxic green cloud settling over New Jersey... Maybe all that methane off-gassing from the dumps is accumulating in the atmosphere above the bigger cities. Could also be a by-product of spray tanning chemicals.

Re:Green city?

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that it's on the opposite side of Mexico from the Yucatan Peninsula, so it may be Guatamala or something. It's hard to say. The video definitely starts at the Pacific NW, progresses down California, then moves passed Central and South America.

Re:Green city?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the green light seen on sec. 30?

Inform Slashdot, we've engaged the Borg.

Re:Green city?

[Acapulco]

Veracruz is not on that side of Mexico (the Gulf is on the left side on this video).

That would be, if still in Mexico, more like Oaxaca or even Chiapas. If indeed its even more to the south, then Guatemala.

Re:Green city?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the green light seen on sec. 30?

It's swamp gas. Nothing to see here.

Re:Green city?

[socrplayr813]

No... Clearly, the Borg have landed and have begun to assimilate us...

I, for one, welcome our blah blah blah...

Re:Green city?

[wildstoo]

I compared the video to Google Earth, with the viewpoint set at a similar altitude and angle.

I'm pretty sure it's Guatemala City.

Re:Green city?

[lytithwyn]

What's the green light seen on sec. 30?

It's a ship returning from Davy Jone's locker!

Re:Green city?

[reverseengineer]

Oops- everyone who pointed out that that's the west coast of Central America is probably right- I was just going off another post that listed the cities. Even knowing what's being passed over, the angles of this video (which is spectacular) disorient me and I have trouble making heads or tails of it.

Re:Green city?

[wildstoo]

In fact:

Here's a pic. Plenty of green lights down there.

Shopped

[Anonymous Coward]

If I saw this in a game, I'd say there's way to much effects and colours and it looks completely unrealistic.

Re:Shopped

[Osgeld]

well, in the past I might agree with you, but there is not enough brown to rationalize that thought with today's games

Re:Alright

[slashdottedjoe]

The space station would have a great advantage over a 0G plane. You get the time to be creative. However, there will be a few issues with Newton's Laws.

Screensaver?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know how to convert this video into...a screensaver?

I know it seems like a simplistic request, but googling a bit reveals...well...nothing.

Even in just a simple loop I'd love to use it...but short of downloading it and using a media player, I can't seem to find something that does this...

Re:Screensaver?

[Dr Herbert West]

I already beat you to it-- get a commercial (or better yet, freeware) screencap software like CamStudio or SnapzPro, set the rezolution to 1080 on the YouTube toolbar, and record it playing. Then do all your cropping, resizing, exporting in your video editing software of choice.

It took me five minutes.

Re:Screensaver?

[_4rp4n3t]

Or you could, you know, just pull the FLV out of your browser cache and import that into your video editing software of choice.

Amazing!

[owlnation]

Stunning video! It just shows you how crappy most scfi movie and TV show VFX have been. The real thing is waaaayyyy better. I could watch it for hours.

Plagiarism already

[macraig]

Would you believe some twit has already plagiarized it, and even kept the same YouTube title?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tInCjvBy-Uw

I've never felt a need to "report" YouTube videos before, but there doesn't even seem to be a public mechanism to do it.

Re:Plagiarism already

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been made private.

It was amusing to watch for a while... people pointing out what a dick he was being, him deleting the comments.Eventually he made the video unsearchable, and then eventually made it private so that only his butt buddies can now see it. heheh

Re:Plagiarism already

[icebraining]

Report it for what? NASA videos are not copyrighted.

And even if they were, Youtube only lets you report copyright violations if you're the copyright holder. As it should.

Re:Plagiarism already

[macraig]

Read TFS again: NASA did not produce this video montage. NASA was merely the source of what was used. You do understand how current copyright law works, right? The creator of that montage can - and DID - claim copyright for his work even though it incorporated material for which couldn't claim copyright. It's a derivative copyrighted work.

None of which matters, because I notified Mr. Drake about the plagiarism privately, and he did in fact assert his copyright. Just try to find that plagiarized copy now.

Re:Plagiarism already

[icebraining]

Yes, I do understand copyright law, I just missed that part of TFS and thought NASA as an organization has produced it. I stand corrected.

Obligatory . . .

[wrencherd]

I can see my house!

Re:Obligatory . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

At least, nobody pointed a green laser at the ISS trying to blind the pilot

Re:Obligatory . . .

[koinu]

I can see "Missing Plug-In"!

Re:Obligatory . . .

[roger_pasky]

Now you can sue Nasa just like in the Street View scenario. I realised they caught me naked in one image, so I request Nasa to blur the pixel where I appear on.

Re:Obligatory . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo, Mama, are so fat you take a whole pixel in pictures taken from space

Solar Panel Motion

[the monolith]

I watched the ground (stupendous,) I watched the lightning (amazing,) I watched the stars (Fascinating: it's worth watching them come upwards from the horizon - like rain in reverse, and also watch the atmospheric effects on them.) Then I tried to figure out where places are (still clueless: would like second-by-second tabulated list of locations, please.) Then I started watching the ISS itself - the play of light and reflections on the equipment that is visible, and have to ask (someone knowledgeable, please) if the motions of the solar panels while in earth shadow are really necessary? It just seems uneconomical electrically and mechanically to allow such movements.

Just asking, as always.

Graham.
(SETI user of the day 19 September 2011 - Every Little Helps!)

Re:Solar Panel Motion

[mywhitewolf]

Possibly pointing the panels towards the moon to collect the reflected light?

Re:Solar Panel Motion

[shutdown -p now]

Then I tried to figure out where places are (still clueless: would like second-by-second tabulated list of locations, please.)

It's right there in the description of YouTube video if you expand it.

Re:Solar Panel Motion

[Strider-]

Then I started watching the ISS itself - the play of light and reflections on the equipment that is visible, and have to ask (someone knowledgeable, please) if the motions of the solar panels while in earth shadow are really necessary? It just seems uneconomical electrically and mechanically to allow such movements.

They keep moving because it's the easiest to thing to do. They need to re-position the panels so they're face-on to the sun as it rises on the next orbit. The simplest thing to do is just to continually track the sun, even if the earth is in the way; that way it's just one slow, continuous motion. That said, they can also go into "night flyer" mode where the station turns the panels edge-on to the direction of travel to reduce drag, when in the dark. The tradeoff is this puts more strain on the control-moment gyros that keep the station stable.

These were in the dark

[SpasticWeasel]

This sequence was taken at night using moonshine for illumination. Which makes it pretty damn cool.

truly stunning

[ordinal]

with all the hurt and pain in the world it's stuff like this that truly make it all worth it... the lights, the lightning, the earth. thank you

Re:truly stunning

[tehcyder]

with all the hurt and pain in the world it's stuff like this that truly make it all worth it... the lights, the lightning, the earth. thank you

Fuck me you're a cheap date.

Re:Stunning

[somersault]

Did you actually watch the video? Even if you weren't literally stunned, you have to admit those lightning storms must be slightly more stunning than your typical tazer.

Re:Alright

[Anonymous Coward]

Nigga, I don't give a FUCK.

Funny how

[DCFusor]

without lines on the "map" it's hard to tell without a program, though I'd assume all the bright lights are where people are "rich" vs where they aren't so much. The real thing beats maps and artificial borders all out.

As someone studying the financial crisis that's ongoing and all the finger pointing and trying to figure out who owes who and can't pay -- all by country boundaries, this puts a better perspective on how artificial all that is.

Re:Funny how

[Raenex]

Check out NASA's Earth at Night picture for a comprehensive view. One striking area is to look at the difference between North Korea and South Korea.

Re:Alright

[Anonymous Coward]

Great story Bro.

I don't get it.

[gblues]

Why are we oohing and ahhing over the Civilization 4 title screen?

Very Cool

[raymorphic]

You can see the thundering on the surface of the planet.

Thanks for sharing.

Original resolution

[andreicio]

I used savetube to download the video, and it offered the regular options: various formats and resolutions. Only it had this:
Download MP4(3072p (Original))

Re:Alright

[Anonymous Coward]

I jacked off and shot a pretty impressive roper, if I do say so myself.

From wikipedia:

This aircraft is used to train astronauts in zero-g maneuvers, giving them about 25 seconds of weightlessness out of 65 seconds of flight in each parabola.

Sucks to be you dude.

Re:Alright

[tom17]

Licking windows much?

Re:Stunning

[oobayly]

Funny, I interpreted the GP as meaning "this is truly stunning, unlike most of the stuff labelled as stunning".

Re:Stunning

[somersault]

It would be kind of silly to post a single word comment where the word is the first word of the summary's title. That's YouTube style commenting.

Besides, if you look at all his other comments, they're flamebait/trolls all the way. Quite likely that he's just being grouchy, rather than actually being positive.

obvious fake

[tehcyder]

As the world is flat, this is clearly impossible, and must be propaganda made up by Marxists or other atheists.

Re:obvious fake

[MiniMike]

It's crazy to think it's flat, when right in front of you you could clearly see the surface of the world following the curvature of the shell of the top turtle.

Some people will cling to their irrational beliefs wayyyy too long.

Mental musical accompanyment

[HTH NE1]

Am I the only one who imagined the theme to Blakes 7 while watching this?

Re:Alright

[tehcyder]

I jacked off and shot a pretty impressive roper, if I do say so myself.

From wikipedia:

This aircraft is used to train astronauts in zero-g maneuvers, giving them about 25 seconds of weightlessness out of 65 seconds of flight in each parabola.

Sucks to be you dude.

I think someone coming for 25 seconds is quite impressive.

Re:Stunning

[Osgeld]

sorry if I am not shit my pants amazed over lighting from orbit ... its been done, this time in high def, I am just not easily amused.

What kind of camera and lens?

[enzo_romeo]

Wonder what he used. I know if I were going up to the space station it would take me a while to decide on what lenses to bring.

Burning Man at 0:12!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to down and to the left of center.

Where's the audio?

[davotoula]

I can't hear anything!