Dancing with the Stars
July 21, 2012 1:17 PM   Subscribe

Views from the ISS at Night (Vimeo) - Knate Myers assembled this video from a series of time-lapse videos taken aboard the ISS. Plus, one of my favorite movie soundtracks! Naturally, go full-screen HD for best experience.

The photos and original time-lapse videos are available from NASA-Johnson Space Center's Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (Previously)

Also Previously and Previouslier
posted by insert.witticism.here (27 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
Revolutionary!
posted by hal9k at 1:40 PM on July 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


It's really a wonder they can get any work done up there. I would be staring out the window constantly.
posted by crunchland at 1:41 PM on July 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Carl Sagan would have cried of joy, and cried for our foolishness in considering how humans too often take earth for granted.
posted by elpapacito at 1:55 PM on July 21, 2012


I am sitting here stunned with tears running down my face. I am a pretty jaded consumer of space porn but it had never occurred to me that there was such a different and gloriously beautiful way to see our little world.

This, in a nutshell, is the argument for sending humans instead of robots. No robot, even remotely controlled by the most artistically minded human, would have thought to take these pictures, because you have to look out the window with human eyes to realize the possibility is even there.

Also this is a much better use of the music than the movie it was originally written for.
posted by localroger at 2:35 PM on July 21, 2012 [2 favorites]


From 3:27 to 3:31 into the video, there is a strange purple/pink/magenta (sorry, I'm colorblind) spot that seems to move with the ISS itself - is it a shadow? (seems like the sun is in the wrong position). is coming from some excitation of the ionosphere caused by the passage of the ISS? Or just a reflection or some other imaging artefact? I'd love to know.
posted by crazy_yeti at 3:03 PM on July 21, 2012


Stunning. I'm also a bit 'meh' when it comes to Vimeo/timelapse/space etc., but that was just incredibly beautiful.
posted by carter at 3:32 PM on July 21, 2012


Or just a reflection or some other imaging artefact?

I'm guessing it's something in the ISS that is reflecting off the window glass.
posted by carter at 3:37 PM on July 21, 2012


That's... just... wow. THANK YOU.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 3:41 PM on July 21, 2012


Wonderful!
posted by leslies at 4:00 PM on July 21, 2012


Gorgeous.
posted by m0nm0n at 4:08 PM on July 21, 2012


Wow.
posted by homunculus at 4:08 PM on July 21, 2012


Oooooooohhhhhhh.
posted by neilb449 at 4:12 PM on July 21, 2012


My god, the aurora.
posted by lucidium at 4:13 PM on July 21, 2012


OK WTF Vimeo. I tried watching it in HD and of course my connection isn't fast enough, so I pause and run the slider back to watch from the beginning with the buffer ... and it flushes the goddamn buffer. Every time. Anyone know how I can download the HD version?
posted by localroger at 4:32 PM on July 21, 2012


OK WTF Vimeo.

Yeah, Vimeo tends to annoy me too. I actually looked around for a download solution for Vimeo when I was waiting for this video to buffer-up, and it looks like the various download services are probably the most robust solutions. The top Google result DownloadVimeo works pretty well. It would be nice to have a plugin in Chrome, but I haven't tested any yet.
posted by insert.witticism.here at 4:58 PM on July 21, 2012


Stunning. I thought it was just me with the tears.
posted by Xoebe at 5:10 PM on July 21, 2012


Time lapse: Within Two Worlds
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM on July 21, 2012


THEY SHOULD HAVE SENT A POET
posted by bicyclefish at 5:35 PM on July 21, 2012 [3 favorites]


Probably my favourite part of all of this is the sped-up sight of those solar arrays, wheeling around to catch the sun. It's like this mighty craft is rowing its way across the sky, its enormous oars pushing it on.
posted by bicyclefish at 5:39 PM on July 21, 2012


THEY SHOULD HAVE SENT A POET

I favorite this a thousand thousand times. Best use of this quote ever.

In my family, we are giant space nerds. Only my husband is an instrumental music nerd; a few pieces really move me and the rest just feels inaccessible. I called him in here, nearly in tears, saying "Do we know this? Did you not tell me about this?" and he said, "Oh yeah, Sunshine, we saw that." This piece goes right up there with Eno's "An Ending (Ascent)" as my most favoritest space-related instrumental pieces EVAR.

Thank you. I really needed this today.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:33 PM on July 21, 2012


Yep. There's really nothing like imagining each one of those tiny specks of light as an entire galaxy itself to give oneself perspective.

Also, something about the apparent need to juxtapose these images with emotive music speaks volumes about human nature.
posted by bigZLiLk at 8:21 PM on July 21, 2012


FYI, the author of this video has the photos in the wrong order in some cases. In other words, the ISS is going the wrong way.

ISS orbits in the eastbound direction. Sometimes NE, sometimes SE, sometimes due E, but always generally eastbound. Towards the end there's a westbound pass over the English Channel.

(Here's why ISS, and nearly everything put into orbit, heads eastbound.)
posted by intermod at 10:05 PM on July 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


Beautiful imagery, but by god I'm fed up with that background music that seems to be the standard these days. It's as if it's saying "LISTEN, STUPID PERSON, FOR THIS SCENE IS MEANT TO BE EMOTIONAL AND MEANINGFUL". The video worked much better when muted.
posted by milkb0at at 5:36 AM on July 22, 2012


like localroger said. Tears in my eyes
posted by nostrada at 11:21 AM on July 22, 2012


insert.witticism.here thank you so much for that link, it worked perfectly and now I have my own HD copy. Yay!
posted by localroger at 5:05 PM on July 22, 2012




Just watched this again and am again in tears. This is just an amazingly beautiful look at at our world.
posted by localroger at 3:47 PM on August 5, 2012


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