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Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

bbc.com

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Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#371

Post by jjulius »

PeterStuer wrote: post #348
nate wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the morning after the launch i just randomly went onto their livestream and one of the astronauts was asking mission control for help on also using the gopros and iPhone cameras. i guess they have some. and he was struggling at getting a properly exposed photo with those. he said they were coming out super over exposed. but the D5 was working nominally. mission control said they'd get back to them about ideas on adju…

You have to wonder how unserious this can get. Given the unimaginable cost of this mission, they are faffing around as your typical aunt with Windows Home laptops and iPhones? Seriously?

I'll echo that "sheesh" in the other comment, too. They're so unserious compared to those super serious Apollo guys[1], right? After all, the Apollo folk never would've smuggled contraband for fun on the Moon[2]!

[1] https://youtu.be/8V9quPcNWZE?si=WBYqsQ1LitRC33rb

[2] https://youtu.be/t_jYOubJmfM?si=QWMhqrwJm2LL14sC

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#373

Post by Sharlin »

TimByte wrote: post #362
Sharlin wrote: post #11

I was confused when I first saw this photo, as I don't think I've ever before seen a nightside, moonlit Earth, exposed so that it looks like the dayside at a first glance. I wonder how many casual viewers actually realize it's the night side. A nice demonstration of how moonlight is pretty much exactly like sunlight, just much much dimmer. In particular it has the same color, even though moonlight is often thought of…

The camera is compensating for extremely low light, so you end up with something that looks closer to a daylight exposure

I know. Apparently this was shot at ISO 51,200.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#374

Post by walrus01 »

hannesfur wrote: post #73

Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019... ), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...

The ISO 51200 would certainly explain the grain when viewing the image at 1:1 scale.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#375

Post by basicallyyeah »

1D smol brains: "Fckin flat erthers lolll"

2D midbrains: "It's Africa and Spain, I can tell you because of my superior knowledge of geography! Are you impressed yet"

3D minds of men: "Godspeed you brave soldiers"

4D Galaxy brains: "Israel did 911, all this space shit is a front for making bombs and rockets, nobody knows where we came from or what happens when we die"

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#376

Post by ericcumbee »

pants2 wrote: post #81
hannesfur wrote: post #73

Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019... ), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...

While the D5 is a great camera it's ~10 years old. Wonder why they didn't go for the Z9 which is its modern mirrorless equivalent.

The D5 has flight heritage to use the industry term.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#379

Post by echoangle »

gus_massa wrote: post #217
narmiouh wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine since they are not circling the earth, that there will be pull of gravity and the camera would start to move relative to the spacecraft. But may not fast enough for a short exposure

Once you are out of the atmosphere and turn off your thrusters, you are on "fee fall" and the gravity on the camera, you and the spaceship produce the same acceleration and they cancel and it looks exactly like "zero gravity". It doesn't matter if you are in orbit around the Earth, going to the Moon.

Actually not quite correct. The camera and spaceship will generally have different starting positions of their center of gravity but the same starting velocity, leading them to drift apart.

The only real relevant thing for the photograph is rotation though as long as the camera doesn’t float in front of the window frame, and airflow is probably much more relevant for both points than gravity.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#380

Post by echoangle »

Kye wrote: post #113
atentaten wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. It would've been cool to see what the location information in the EXIF looked like, if it were there.

The D5 doesn't have built in GPS, and adding it requires an attachment. I don't know if the smartphone app works on that model, but it is from the same year as my D5600 which does support it. The app provides GPS but also drains the battery fast. I turned airplane mode on after the first dead battery. GPS might work out there though: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/somd/space-communications-...

If you use a regular smartphone in space (or technically in orbit for this argument), it’s probably not going to get a fix because GPS receivers are required to stop locating when reaching some speed to not be export controlled. And that speed is picked so people don’t build missiles, orbital speed will be higher.
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