'This felt like fishing.' A NASA astronaut winds up with a spectacular glimpse of the aurora during his first-ever attempt at a time-lapse
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
I remember the first time I ever caught the Northern Lights on camera – I was photographing the night sky when I was startled to see a pale green 'cloud' on the back of the camera that I couldn't see with my eyes. But NASA astronaut Jonny Kim recently shared his first-ever attempt at taking a time-lapse – and it's quite impressive.
The timelapse, shared on the astronaut's social media pages, shows a time-lapse of Earth taken from the International Space Station. The sped-up video starts with city lights and even some flashes of lightning seen from space, but ends with colorful wisps dancing over Southeast Asia and Australia as the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights makes an appearance at the end of the timelapse.
Kim notes in the post that he's never shot a time-lapse before, but took some tips from 'Vapor,' Nichole Ayes, a fellow NASA astronaut also aboard the ISS.
'After seeing the result, I told her this felt like fishing,' Kim wrote. 'Prepping the camera, the angle, the settings, the mount, then setting your timer and coming back to hope you got a catch. And after catching my first fish, I think I'm hooked.'
As someone who has spent many sleepless nights trying to catch the aurora on camera, I agree with the comparison. Sometimes, I leave with nothing but a few photos of stars. Other times, I leave with some of my favorite landscape images that I've ever taken (plus an adrenaline rush from the chase).
Kim arrived on the ISS on April 8 and is expected to spend around eight months aboard.
A time-lapse is a series of still images taken at regular intervals, stitched together into a video. The result is a sped-up video, sort of like the opposite of a slow-motion video. (A few commenters missed this fact; the Earth actually isn't spinning as fast as it appears to be in the video.)
One of the most common mistakes creatives make when taking their first time lapse is not taking enough shots and ending up with a too short video. A tripod is also a must. For more insight into creating timelapses, read DCW's guide on how to create time-lapses. Or, read about how to photograph the northern lights or what night sky events to photograph this June.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
25 minutes ago
- Washington Post
NASA postpones launch while it investigates space station leaks
NASA said Thursday it was postponing a launch of private astronauts to the International Space Station while it works with its Russian counterparts to investigate persistent leaks on the orbiting laboratory. In a statement, NASA said that Russian cosmonauts recently sealed 'some areas of interest' in a module on the Russia side of the space station. As a result, 'the segment is holding pressure,' NASA said. It added that crews also noticed a 'new pressure signature,' and need additional time 'to evaluate the situation and determine whether any additional troubleshooting is necessary.'
CBS News
41 minutes ago
- CBS News
NASA delays commercial crew launch to assess space station air leak
Concern about a small but persistent air leak in a Russian compartment of the International Space Station has prompted NASA and Axiom Space to indefinitely delay this week's launch of a commercial flight to the orbiting outpost, officials said Thursday. The privately-financed Axiom-4 crew — commander Peggy Whitson, Indian pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, Polish researcher Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu — originally planned to take off Tuesday. The International Space Station as seen during a fly-around by Russian cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. The Zvezda service module is visible at bottom center where the station's aft docking port is located. Roscosmos But the flight was delayed to the end of the week, first by high winds in the off-shore emergency splashdown zone and then by an oxygen leak in their Falcon 9 rocket's first stage. SpaceX tentatively targeted Thursday and then Friday for launch, with Saturday and Sunday available if needed. But during SpaceX troubleshooting to find and fix the rocket's propellant leak, NASA engineers decided they needed more time to assess recent efforts to plug an air leak aboard the International Space Station in a Russian vestibule known as the PrK. The PrK serves as a passageway between the station's Zvezda module and spacecraft docked at its aft port. "Teams met today and we will not be launching Axiom-4 tomorrow," flight controllers in Houston radioed the ISS. "We are assessing a new launch date. This is due to the ongoing PrK investigation. So I don't have a new launch date right now, but we will not be launching tomorrow and docking Saturday." An interior vestibule in the Zvezda service module, seen here in a closeup shot, provides access to the rear docking port where Progress cargo ships attach. Zvezda was launched to the space station in July 2000 and a small-but-persistent air leak in the vestibule, first noticed in 2019, has raised concern about the integrity of the aging hardware. Roscosmos In a blog post, NASA said cosmonauts aboard the station "recently performed inspections of the pressurized module's interior surfaces, sealed some additional areas of interest, and measured the current leak rate. Following this effort, the segment now is holding pressure." The post went on to say the Axiom-4 delay will provide "additional time for NASA and (the Russian space agency) Roscosmos to evaluate the situation and determine whether any additional troubleshooting is necessary." Launched in July 2000 atop a Russian Proton rocket, Zvezda was the third module to join the growing space station, providing a command center for Russian cosmonauts, crew quarters, the aft docking port and two additional ports now occupied by airlock and research modules. The leakage was first noticed in 2019, and has been openly discussed ever since by NASA during periodic reviews and space station news briefings. The leak rate has varied, but has stayed in the neighborhood of around 1-to-2 pounds per day. "The station is not young," astronaut Mike Barratt said last November during a post flight news conference. "It's been up there for quite a while, and you expect some wear and tear, and we're seeing that in the form of some cracks that have formed." The Russians have made a variety of attempts to patch a suspect crack and other possible sources of leakage, but air has continued to escape into space. This NASA graphic shows the current status of the International Space Station's docking ports. The PrK compartment is a passageway from the Russian Zvezda module and spacecraft docked at the module's aft port. CBS News/NASA In November, Bob Cabana, a former astronaut and NASA manager who chaired the agency's ISS Advisory Committee, said U.S. and Russian engineers "don't have a common understanding of what the likely root cause is, or the severity of the consequences of these leaks." "The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the PrK cracks is high cyclic fatigue caused by micro vibrations," Cabana said. "NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties and environmental exposures. "The Russians believe that continued operations are safe, but they can't prove to our satisfaction that they are, and the US believes that it's not safe, but we can't prove that to the Russian satisfaction that that's the case." As an interim step, the hatch leading to the PrK and the station's aft docking compartment is closed during daily operations and only opened when the Russians need to unload a visiting Progress cargo ship. And as an added precaution on NASA's part, whenever the hatch to the PrK and docking compartment is open, a hatch between the Russian and U.S. segments of the station is closed. "We've taken a very conservative approach to close a hatch between the US side and the Russian side during those time periods," Barratt said. "It's not a comfortable thing, but it is the best agreement between all the smart people on both sides. And it's something that we crew live with and enact." Cabana said last year that the Russians do not believe "catastrophic disintegration of the PrK is realistic (but) NASA has expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of a catastrophic failure."
an hour ago
Space station leak concerns will delay visit by astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A chartered spaceflight for India, Poland and Hungary's first astronauts in decades has been delayed indefinitely because of leak concerns at the International Space Station. NASA said Thursday that it wants to monitor the cabin pressure on the Russian side of the orbiting lab before accepting visitors. Officials stressed that the seven astronauts currently at the space station are safe and that other operations up there aren't affected. SpaceX was supposed to launch four private astronauts this week on a 14-day space station mission, but bad weather and SpaceX rocket trouble delayed the flight. Then the station leak issue cropped up. The Russian Space Agency has been dealing with a cabin pressure leak at the station, and recent repairs resulted in what NASA calls 'a new pressure signature.' Additional details were not immediately available. The three Russians aboard the space station recently inspected the inside walls of the aging Zvezda service module, which was launched in 2000. They sealed some areas and measured the current leak rate. 'Following this effort, the segment now is holding pressure,' NASA said in an online update. The private mission's delay provides extra time for NASA and the Russian Space Agency 'to evaluate the situation' and determine whether more repairs are needed. The chartered flight was arranged by the Houston company Axiom Space, and was to be Axiom's fourth trip to the space station with paying customers since 2022. 'This is the right thing to do,' Axiom Space's executive chairman Kam Ghaffarian said in a written statement. 'We will continue to work with all of our partners to finalize a new launch date.' The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
