MetaFilter posts tagged with NASA and photography

Rocket Shots

Chinese Jet Pilot — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:38:03 -0800

Soyuz rocket rolls to launch pad. A fine photoset of an otherwise routine Russian rocket rollout. I can tell that photographer Bill Ingalls loves rockets. His favs.

Please Prepare For Landing

msalt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:33:36 -0800

1,512 high-resolution images of Mars from the viewpoint of an airplane passenger. Previous photos: 1 2 3

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

Up, Up, and Away

digaman — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:46:12 -0800

The 56-Euros-and-a-balloon teenage Catalonian space program.

The Solar Connection

digaman — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:01:23 -0800

Rethinking Earthrise. On the 40th anniversary of the NASA's Apollo 8 mission [caution: weird JFK animation], which answered Stewart Brand's epochal, LSD-inspired question "Why haven't we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?" with an unforgettable image of a seemingly fragile and isolated blue planet, Nature editor Oliver Morton -- author of a new book on photosynthesis called Eating the Sun -- disputes the notion that the Earth is fragile and isolated. "The fragility is an illusion," he writes. "The planet Earth is a remarkably robust thing, and this strength flows from its ancient and intimate connection to the cosmos beyond. To see the photo this way does not undermine its environmental relevance -- but it does recast it."

The Whole Earth Photolog

Rhaomi — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:34:54 -0800

From grainy stills to gorgeous high-resolution portraits, from intimate pairings to stark contrasts, and from old standbys to little-known surprises, The Planetary Society's Earth galleries offer a rich collection of stunning photography and video footage of our world as seen from both planetary spacecraft and geostationary satellites. It is a vista that has inspired many a deep thought in the lucky few that have seen it firsthand [previously]. Oh, and the rest of the Solar System is pretty neat, too.

Mother Nature is an abstract artist

CunningLinguist — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:48:50 -0800

30 Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth "From 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist." Nice NASA images from 2000, downloadable as wallpaper.

Mars in Pictures

Chinese Jet Pilot — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:03:35 -0800

The evolution of Mars imaging from orbit: Mariner 4 (1964), Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 (both 1969), Mariner 9 (1971) (all NASA), Mars 5 (1973) (USSR), Viking 1 (1975), Viking 2 (1976), Mars Global Surveyor (1996), Mars Odyssey (2001) (NASA), Mars Express (2003) (ESA), up to this spy-quality shot of an active avalanche taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2005).

"We'd like to confirm, from the crew of Apollo 17, that the world is round."

blahblahblah — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:34:39 -0800

The most widely-distributed photograph in history may be The Blue Marble, a shot taken in 1972 by an unknown crewmember on Apollo 17. In 2002, NASA released a new Blue Marble photograph, familiar to desktops everywhere, using a composite of many photographs. In 2005, Blue Marble: The Next Generation offered even better views and some spectacular animations of the seasons from space. In the same spirit, the Discovery Channel just launched Earth Live, which lets you see the dynamics of weather and climate through a well done interface.

"The sun descending in the west, The evening star does shine;"

wander — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:12:27 -0800

Have you ever wondered what a solar eclipse would look like from space? The STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) has just sent back its view (awe-inspiring video included). It has also sent back some gorgeous pictures of our sun (and the McNaught Comet). For more media, check out the other galleries (including some 3D images). For more about the project, see NASA's STEREO homepage. Be sure to also stop by the Johns Hopkins University STEREO Page, where you can download a mission guide (pdf), view animations, watch a video of the launch, or even make your own papercraft STEREO model (pdf). You can also learn more in six minute segments with their series of short educational videos.

HiRISE High-Res Images From Mars - Find the filing cabinet!

carsonb — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 11:09:22 -0800

The HiRISE camera is one of eleven instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Yesterday the first few images were downloaded from the MRO.

In space, no one can hear you say "cheese".

Gamblor — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:17:37 -0800

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Over half a million photographs of Earth taken from orbit by astronauts, from 1961 through the present. The ability of the astronauts to rapidly identify interesting phenomena allows them to capture events as they occur, like volcanic eruptions, floods, and hurricanes, or take advantage of the angle of the sun to highlight specific features, like the pyramids or Mount Everest.

When you touch down/You'll find that it's stranger than known

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:20:08 -0800

300 Miles High

planetary photojournal

crunchland — Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:43:18 -0800

planetary photojournal

Coolest sun picture ever

notsnot — Fri, 15 Nov 2002 13:21:12 -0800

Coolest sun picture ever - sunspot closeup... The Swedish Institute for Solar Physics web site has some other cool pictures. (As an aside, I wonder what equivalent shutter speed, aperture, and focal length would be?)

zeoslap — Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:07:55 -0800

Sattelite Pics of NY, here is a bigger one

owillis — Fri, 20 Apr 2001 16:44:00 -0800

Zooooom in from space! Very cool views of our planet

dragonmage — Wed, 21 Feb 2001 13:45:41 -0800

Ever seen a sonic boom? A NASA website has daily pictures from a variety of astronomical sources. Today's is a little more down-to-earth; the visual representation of a sonic boom, captured when an F/A-18 Hornet crossed the sound barrier.

lizardboy — Tue, 02 Jan 2001 17:07:00 -0800

This is an amazing photograph of what the world looks like at night, from a low orbit. Although this is found in a subdirectory of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, I'm not sure how to get to this pic by surfing the site, nor do I have any information on what was used to do the photographing. The link was sent to me in an email.

Anybody know the details on this one?

fpatrick — Wed, 22 Nov 2000 08:34:48 -0800

Putting it all in perspective -- this is one of my daily links, reminding me that there is always a bigger picture to consider.

tamim — Sat, 07 Oct 2000 05:28:51 -0800

A striking photo of The Sigma Orionis star cluster where the astronomers have found 18 "planets" which are not orbiting around any central star. On the same note, you may want to visit the new planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. My mother was not impressed by the New Hayden Planetarium when she visited NY this summer. I thought the Rose Center was a real life version of the Hawking book, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time. The book was a much better experience.

Steven Den Beste — Tue, 25 Jul 2000 21:52:33 -0800

This reminded me of one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. Once on vacation in Eastern Oregon, there was a total eclipse of the moon, just like this one. And some people nearby were taking photographs of it. Flash photographs. The round-trip time to the moon at the speed of light is 3 seconds and I wouldn't even want to calculate the attenuation caused by 320,000 miles of range. Sometimes it seems as if some people are completely and totally clueless about what they're doing.