darkness. light—clouds! water water, clouds clouds clouds AHA LAND HO!!!
June 3, 2019 6:18 PM   Subscribe

NASA Live: Earth Views from the Space Station"...views will typically sequence through the different cameras. If you are seeing a black image, the Space Station is on the night side of the Earth. If you are seeing an image with text displayed, the communications are switching between satellites and camera feeds are temporarily unavailable. Between camera switches, a black & gray slate will also briefly appear." Here, you can find the current location of the ISS on a map of the earth.
posted by not_on_display (16 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
aaaaaand I just posted this when it's on the night side, of course.
posted by not_on_display at 6:20 PM on June 3, 2019


45 minutes or so later and it is over a partly cloudy Indonesia.

I have looked at clouds from both sides now.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:10 PM on June 3, 2019 [5 favorites]


That would be HDEV, the High Definition Earth Viewing payload. There's a wikipedia page if you are interested.

HDEV has two missions: first, it was to evaluate how COTS HD video cameras hold up to the ISS external radiation environment. The answer to that question so far is: great!

The second is its educational value: HDEV has been streaming live video since it went up in 2014. We were using Ustream, I guess it is on YouTube now as well?

Funny story (which may differ from reality in some small details, as I have slept since then): as engineers, we were all much more focused on point one than point two. Six months after activation, it went down for the first and so far only time. While we were working through the fault tree, the project scientist got a phone call: The NASA Administrator liked to have HDEV open on his desktop PC, and had noticed it had gone down. This worked its way through the hierarchy until it ended up with us, and I can tell you that when your customer's boss's boss's boss's boss wants a status update, well, you work the fault tree exactly like you would have for anything else (except more so). In the end, we turned it off and turned it back on, and the problem cleared... but there were a few hours there where we were wondering if the next time the phone rang it was going to be President Obama.
posted by BeeDo at 7:36 PM on June 3, 2019 [10 favorites]


Thanks, BeeDo — Here's the wikipedia page for the HDEV payload, those lazier than I am.

"...we turned it off and turned it back on, and the problem cleared... but there were a few hours there where we were wondering if the next time the phone rang it was going to be President Obama."

This will be our Millenium's Golden Rule. "Do Unto Others Until You Try Turning It Off and Then On Again."
posted by not_on_display at 7:54 PM on June 3, 2019


How are none of the links here the link that I got from the first time I saw this on MF: High Definition Earth-Viewing System (HDEV) at nasa.gov (which includes video AND the tracking map).
posted by hippybear at 9:10 PM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


My mom likes to look for the ISS when it passes over-- I will send her this link so she can wave to herself on it.
posted by The otter lady at 9:13 PM on June 3, 2019


aaaaaand I just posted this when it's on the night side, of course.
posted by not_on_display


Eponysterical.
posted by bryon at 9:34 PM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Every time not_on_display makes an FPP I think "but how much more on display could you be?!"
posted by hippybear at 9:39 PM on June 3, 2019


I am obscured when I am on the dark side of the earth
posted by not_on_display at 9:47 PM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]


I'm sorry I can't hear you it's so dark in here.
posted by hippybear at 10:06 PM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Is this post title a China, IL reference? Deep cut if so.
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:04 AM on June 4, 2019 [1 favorite]


Is this post title a China, IL reference?

No! Please link, esp. if it's on YT
posted by not_on_display at 8:33 AM on June 4, 2019


...(Cancel that! And I was gonna say, is China, IL a Brad Neely show? Yep. Looks like I got some watchin' to do.)
posted by not_on_display at 3:25 PM on June 4, 2019


Here ya go. Sadly just the music, not the accompanying cartoon.
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:42 PM on June 4, 2019 [1 favorite]


NEW LIVE LINK


I guess they change the URL every so often.
posted by not_on_display at 10:15 PM on June 16, 2019


> Is this post title a China, IL reference? Deep cut if so.

Well I finally got to that episode and gotta say, yeah, deeeeeeep cut. TAKE ME TO CHICAGO
posted by not_on_display at 8:30 PM on July 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


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