Orbiting at an altitude of 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) get an unparalleled view of the cosmos resting above the planet’s horizon. Hoping to make the most of the house station’s window to the skies, NASA astronaut Don Pettit got here ready for his ISS mission, packing a monitoring gadget that’s been serving to him seize long-exposure photographs of surrounding stars and galaxies.
In a current publish on X, Pettit shared a photograph he had captured from the window of the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft, docked to the ISS. The picture exhibits a celestial discipline suffering from stars, and two galaxies from the Milky Way’s native group. “I flew a home-made monitoring gadget that enables time exposures required to {photograph} star fields,” Pettit wrote on X. “Stay tuned for extra photographs like this.”
Pettit’s home-made star tracker, a motorized mount that sits between a digital camera and a tripod to counteract the movement of the celebrities, is kind of spectacular. It permits us to see a transparent view of the celebrities from low-Earth orbit as a substitute of the often blurry pictures captured from the ISS.
In house, you may see stars!
I flew a home-made monitoring gadget that enables time exposures required to {photograph} star fields.
Stay tuned for extra photographs like this. pic.twitter.com/OO57o4oU8l— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) December 5, 2024
The two galactic figures are of the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, based on LiveScience. They are each among the many Milky Way’s closest neighbors, and might be noticed within the night time skies from the southern hemisphere.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a satellite tv for pc galaxy positioned round 160,000 gentle years away from Earth, and it accommodates round 30 billion stars. Its smaller counterpart, the Small Magellanic Cloud, is a dwarf galaxy with about 3 billion stars. It’s slight additional away, positioned about 210,000 gentle years away from Earth. Both galaxies are believed to behave as galactic satellites, orbiting round our Milky Way galaxy because it travels by the cosmos.
Pettit’s picture of the 2 galaxies side-by-side places the universe in perspective. This isn’t the astronaut’s first try at beaming down views from the ISS. Earlier this month, Pettit captured what he known as “cosmic fireflies,” floating outdoors the house station, which have been truly Starlink satellites reflecting daylight.
The NASA astronaut launched to the ISS in September, using on board a Russian Soyuz crew capsule as a part of the Expedition 72 mission. At 69 years outdated, Pettit is the oldest lively astronaut at NASA, logging in additional than 370 days in house and over 13 hours of spacewalk time, based on NASA. Having spent all that point in house, the astronaut remains to be curious concerning the surrounding cosmos and he’s taking us alongside for the experience.
