Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World
The description from this fascinating video is:
As part of the Saturday Morning Science program by Don Pettit during Expedition 6 to the International Space Station, his video “Cities at Night; an Orbital Tour Around the World” is a video made from digital still images. This video was made for educational presentations.
You can see an entire overview of the Cities at Night project here.
Frankly, as cool as the cities look from space, what I find most amazing is how they actually took these photos! Those freaking astronauts are improvisational geniuses! Don Pettit built and installed a “barn-door tracker†– from spare parts no less – to enable him to take nighttime photographs from the International Space Station.
If you don’t mind a 128MB download, you can grab a high resolution version of this movie here. Though, I did it and wouldn’t really say you can see much more detail.
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Two things really struck me about the video. Firstly, that they could zoom to 60 metre resolution (if I am understanding that right) and secondly, that the piece on London panned down the coast to “Bristol” – a small city only 20 miles from where I live!
What a massive energy consumption! I would not mind seeing big cities at night from no electricity days lit with torches compared to now day pictures.
Besides the stunning beauty of these shots, it gives us a clear impression of the tremendous amount of energy modern man needs to keep his world going.
impressive. that guys did a great job. Thanks again John for sharing. The difference of the street-structures between the “old” world where you clearly see the city-center and the “new” towns in the states is interesting.
Microsoft Encarta has night time photos on their atlas as well, fun to play with as well.
Kim:)
These shots are truly amazing. For science to have advanced so much is incredible. A really cool place to look at them is through Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope.
Incredibly moving, for some reason; this video seems to make the world a much smaller place and connects us all together. Amazing.
Ah, I love these kinds of images. Gives such a powerful feel for humanity’s intricate networking.
That is excellent! I remember being sent an email with a powerpoint slideshow and it was of similar images, totally breathtaking.
This image also gives a good idea of the world at night.
http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/1438/earth_lights.gif