Thanks to NASA, we’ve seen plenty of splendid photos and videos from space. Recently, they ordered 53 unmodified Nikon D5 cameras, which have the value of almost $350,000. As they say from Nikon, a part of the cameras will be used in the astronaut training facilities, and another part goes to the International Space Station. From there, they will be recording intra- and extravehicular activities.
Sony Alpha a7S II shoots first ever commercial level 4K video from space
We mount action cameras on handlebars and helmets, and Japanese engineers mounted a Sony Alpha a7S II onto the International Space Station (ISS). As a result, we now have the first ever commercial-quality footage of the Earth from outer space.
249m miles above our home planet, the camera filmed day and night view of Japan and the USA. It took special extra equipment to keep the camera safe and rolling, and as you can expect – the efforts paid off.
The latest photos of Jupiter via Juno are amazing
Thanks to NASA’s public media library, we’re able to see, download and edit the most amazing photos from space. And the latest photos of Jupiter by Juno spacecraft are groundbreaking and incredible.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the storm bigger the Earth, is now captured in the closest and the clearest photos ever. Juno captured them 5,600 miles above the clouds, and NASA posted them in their gallery for the public to download and process. The images show an incredible amount of details, helping the scientists understand the storm better, and making the rest of us gasp in awe.
These are the first real-color images of Saturn’s polar vortex
NASA has their rich media library available to the public, and they made it easier than ever for the users to access and search. Sophia Nasr, an astro-particle physicist, has created a true-color image of polar vortex on Saturn’s North Pole. A young scientist used three raw images taken by Cassini and merged them in Photoshop to create an image that shows what we would see if we were orbiting Saturn in a spacecraft.
NASA makes their entire media library publicly accessible and copyright free
No matter if you enjoy taking or just watching images of space, NASA has a treat for you. They have made their entire collection of images, sounds, and video available and publicly searchable online. It’s 140,000 photos and other resources available for you to see, or even download and use it any way you like.
Apollo astronauts were darn good photographers
What do the names Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham or Donn Eisele mean to you? Do you see them only as the astronauts from the Apollo 7 mission, or there’s something else? Other than being heroes and the makers of history – they also made great photos, some of which became iconic.
Dutch designer Simon Phillipson issued a book Apollo VII – XVII to pay a tribute to these astronauts and the photos they took. It features 225 photos from the space missions, all taken by astronauts. And in this article, we’ll present you with some of them.
NASA’s new satellite offers stunningly high resolution images of earth
The GEOS-16 satellite lifted off in November last year. The satellite contains an Advanced Baseline Imager, which boasts images of earth at four times the resolution of any other satellite. Scientists, meteorologists and regular weather & science enthusiasts around the world have been itching to see those first images. Well, now they’re in and they look amazing.
Below is a “full-disk” image of the earth. It comes in at a rather sizeable 117.4 megapixels, and the satellite can produce one of these every 15 minutes.
The Weird Story Of The US Sending Camera Coffins To Space And The Soviets Repurposing Them Into Moon Fax Cameras
Sometimes real stories go beyond anything we can imagine. And this one from Damn Interesting podcast certainly exceeds any fictionous photography tale one can conceive. It involves espionage, camera coffins, secret film formulas and faxing a photo of the moon.
During the cold war the US initiated a Project Genetrix a secret project executed to gather intel from the closed border USSR. Project Genetrix launched huge 200-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide helium balloons into the air around strategic locations in Europe where the wind was supposed to carry them over the USSR where they will take photos and eventually exit the USSR air space to be collected by a friendly plane, mid air and have the film sent to the US for the intelligence force to decipher. This may sound like a kids play nowadays (and it is), but back in ’56 we did not have no gopros.
Apollo Mission Images Released, And They Are Out Of This World!
NASA just released the images that were taken from the Apollo mission. Project Apollo Archive took on the tedious job of putting the magazines into a flickr account! There are thousands of images to look through and each one is interesting.
The author of the flickr account stated that the best way to view is in the “Album” view. I have looked through some of the galleries and picked out a few favorites! Check these out after the jump! (no pun intended)
How To Create The Cosmos in 8K with Practical Effects And A Canon 5DS
If you see any visualization of the cosmos nowadays it is probably one of two: either computer generated effect or a stack of images from NASA public archive.
Shanks FX took a different approach and created a bigger-than-8K cosmos creation sequence with practical effects, which is movie lingo for in-camera.
I absolutely love the idea of creating effect in camera, and especially when the process is simple and innovative and the results are worth the effort. Shanks FX used a mix of milk, food coloring and soap over a piece of glass. They then mounted a Canon 5DS and used the high speed burst mode to capture 2-4 photos per second, and combine them into a time-lapse. Alas it was too large of a file:
