The REALLY BIG Landscape - from Space Shuttle

[BradSmith]

I know it's a bit of a stretch, but these were too beautiful not to share.  Taken by the astronauts during the recent Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-118 mission. Talk about some of the most amazing pictures from space, certainly that I've seen in a long time. So good, and real they almost look fake.  Here's one place that atmospheric haze isn't a problem. (the guy that posted them works at an internet based Mac sales company -  don't be put off by the commercial look of the url)

Brad

http://jamie.macsales.com/sts118a/index.html

[mahleu]

Not quite perfect, there seems to be some blue fringing on the Earth

Nice photos. What cameras do they use these days?

[Tim Gray]

Thanks for posting!

[Caracalla]

Not quite perfect, there seems to be some blue fringing on the Earth

Nice photos. What cameras do they use these days?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136848\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[span style=\'font-size:14pt;line-height:100%\']Canon G7[/span]

[DiaAzul]

Nice photos. What cameras do they use these days?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Can't say for definite, but Hasselblad still talk up their involvement in space. Quite an interesting read if only to realise that they had to completely re-engineer the cameras with special materials as the traditional lubricants in the camera evaporate in the vacuum of space - guess it is not so easy just to lob you Nikon, Camera, or whatever in your knapsack and Jet into space.

[a href=\"http://www.hasselblad.com/about-hasselblad/hasselblad-in-space.aspx]Hasselblad In Space[/url]

The next question will be can you take your Canon 1DsIII into space on board Virgin Galactic and will it work during the zero G portion of the flight?

[mahleu]

Can't say for definite, but Hasselblad still talk up their involvement in space. Quite an interesting read if only to realise that they had to completely re-engineer the cameras with special materials as the traditional lubricants in the camera evaporate in the vacuum of space - guess it is not so easy just to lob you Nikon, Camera, or whatever in your knapsack and Jet into space.

Hasselblad In Space

The next question will be can you take your Canon 1DsIII into space on board Virgin Galactic and will it work during the zero G portion of the flight?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136919\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'm guessing all you would need to defeat the vacuum of space would be an underwater housing. I also guess most cameras would work in a zero-g environment, they work for skydivers.

Apparently the first hassy in space was standard

Walter Schirra entered a Houston photo supply shop and purchased a Hasselblad 500C. The camera was a standard consumer unit with a Planar f/2.8, 80 mm lens. Schirra was a prospective NASA astronaut, one of the brightest and finest pilots of his time, a man with the “right stuff”. Thinking to take his new purchase up on a space shot with him, Schirra stripped the leatherette from the body of the Hasselblad and painted its metal surface black in order to minimize reflections. And when he climbed aboard a Mercury rocket in October 1962, he took his Hasselblad with him. Once in Space, he documented the wonder and awe inspiring beauty he saw around. He took the first space photographs using his consumer model Hasselblad.

But then later it says

The Hasselblad 500C, with a planar 80mm lens (modified), was the first Hasselblad camera to be used by NASA in space. It was purchased by the astronaut Walter M. Schirra from a camera shop in Houston, Texas.
Modification, carried out by NASA, involved removing the lining, mirror, focusing screen and hood, among other things, to make the camera lighter.

There we have it, proof that the moon landings were fake

[fennario]

I'm guessing all you would need to defeat the vacuum of space would be an underwater housing. I also guess most cameras would work in a zero-g environment, they work for skydivers.

Apparently the first hassy in space was standard
But then later it says
There we have it, proof that the moon landings were fake
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136921\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Totally a wild guess, but not sure about underwater housings working in space.  Atmospheric pressure increases when under water so the casing and seals are designed to keep stuff out, not in.

[Bravin Neff]

Those images look fantastic.

[mikeseb]

I also guess most cameras would work in a zero-g environment, they work for skydivers.

Skydivers aren't in a zero-g environment; otherwise, they wouldn't be, er, "diving"! Camera and skydiver are accelerating at the same rate during free-fall, at 9.8 m/sec/sec.

Gorgeous images indeed.

[macgyver]

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=22929

That shows their cameras.

[mahleu]

Skydivers aren't in a zero-g environment; otherwise, they wouldn't be, er, "diving"! Camera and skydiver are accelerating at the same rate during free-fall, at 9.8 m/sec/sec.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=137785\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Just as astronauts are whilst in orbit. Only they're travelling forward fast enough for their trajectory to follow the curve of the earth.

Zero G simply means unaffected by gravity, not the lack of gravity. So falling qualifies. The only real difference is wind resistance.

[jpjespersen]

Not quite perfect, there seems to be some blue fringing on the Earth

Nice photos. What cameras do they use these days?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136848\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Who's to say thats not a natural blue fringing.  I don't know what camera they use but do know that NASA gets the top quality chips with the least amount of imperfections reserved for them from the chip manufacturers.

[feppe]

Who's to say thats not a natural blue fringing.  I don't know what camera they use but do know that NASA gets the top quality chips with the least amount of imperfections reserved for them from the chip manufacturers.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=142459\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

*wooosh*

[mahleu]

*wooosh*
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=142465\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[SockPuppet]

My PhD was in space electronics (near enough), so I can probably answer this. In low earth orbit (LEO), where the ISS and the Shuttle live, there isn't much more radiation than you'd get in a high-altitude aircraft, so chances are that if you were in a pressurised cabin you could use more or less any camera you like and it should just work. You might, very occasionally, have to power-cycle it if the embedded processor glitches, and you might also very occasionally have a bright or dark pixel due to a cosmic ray impact on the CCD.

As for working in a vacuum, I very much doubt that a conventional DSLR would work correctly -- if it worked at all, it probably wouldn't work for very long. You'd probably get outgassing from the lubricants used in the mechanical parts, there's a good chance the shutter would stick in place either due to that or other vacuum effects, the temperatures involved would probably go outside the camera's design parameters, and most likely the CCD would overheat. Another phenomenon called differential charging would probably fry the electronics within a few minutes too. Having said that, a diver's camera housing would probably stand a reasonable chance of working -- they can usually stand quite significant positive pressure, so 1 atmosphere pushing outwards is probably going to be OK, assuming that the materials used in all the seals can cope with vacuum.

[islandboy]

Just as astronauts are whilst in orbit. Only they're travelling forward fast enough for their trajectory to follow the curve of the earth.

Zero G simply means unaffected by gravity, not the lack of gravity. So falling qualifies. The only real difference is wind resistance.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=137838\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The act of falling is most definitely an effect of gravity. All falling bodies fall with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 which is gravitational acceleration. Skydivers are definitely not in a zero G environment as they are undergoing gravitational acceleration.  Air resistance which the skydiver can vary by contracting or expanding his/her surface area can slow acceleration but there is always a constant acceleration otherwise a skydiver could stay in the air indefinitely until he chose to descend. Astronauts traveling in orbit are traveling fast enough that they constantly bend around the Earth and the centrifugal force cancels out the gravitational force resulting in a zero-G environment. So they are actually constantly falling at the same time they are traveling laterally but at such a speed that they are traveling around the bend in the Earth and this is what creates the Zero G environment. The 2 are not comparable.

[mahleu]

The act of falling is most definitely an effect of gravity. All falling bodies fall with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 which is gravitational acceleration. Skydivers are definitely not in a zero G environment as they are undergoing gravitational acceleration.  Air resistance which the skydiver can vary by contracting or expanding his/her surface area can slow acceleration but there is always a constant acceleration otherwise a skydiver could stay in the air indefinitely until he chose to descend. Astronauts traveling in orbit are traveling fast enough that they constantly bend around the Earth and the centrifugal force cancels out the gravitational force resulting in a zero-G environment. So they are actually constantly falling at the same time they are traveling laterally but at such a speed that they are traveling around the bend in the Earth and this is what creates the Zero G environment. The 2 are not comparable.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=152239\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Once a skydiver reaches ternminal velocity the wind resistence is equal to the gravitational force and they thus have equal forces acting upwards and downwards. Thus they are at 0G. Just as sitting here I am at 1G. Being able to change that by moving my body does not change the physics.

[Rob C]

Don´t you just love photography?

Rob C

[Misirlou]

Last week, I watched the shuttle landing on HD. They ran a story about the crew changeover at the space station, and one of the astronauts was taking a picture of the others (inside of course) to commemorate the occasion. He was definitely using a DSLR, and it definitely wasn't a Canon. Either Nikon or Kodak.

[islandboy]

Once a skydiver reaches ternminal velocity the wind resistence is equal to the gravitational force and they thus have equal forces acting upwards and downwards. Thus they are at 0G. Just as sitting here I am at 1G. Being able to change that by moving my body does not change the physics.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=152326\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You are correct Mahleu regarding terminal velocity and I was incorrect to use the words constant acceleration as terminal velocity is a constant velocity state with no acceleration. You are also correct that once a skydiver reaches true terminal velocity (no acceleration, falling at constant velocity) , the net force acting on him/her is 0, however anything that alters that velocity, either acceleratory i.e decreasing wind resistance by tucking or diving,etc. or deceleratory i.e. increasing wind resistance by increasing drag, opening parachute, etc. will eliminate that perfect zero G environment. So I will concede that it is possible to achieve at least for a very small time a very limited zero G environment, however, it cannot be maintained. Changing body position even by a relatively small amount, changes drag/air resistance which imbalances the opposing forces. Compare this to an astronaut who maintains a constant zero or near zero G environment  by maintaining the speed and trajectory necessary to maintain orbit.

Now what all this has to do with photography I have no clue and now my head hurts and I am remembering how much I hated studying physics. I need a beer.