For all those who’ve ever yearned to look out the window of the International Space Station and see the magnificent Earth pass by beneath it, an incredible new video offers a five-minute glimpse. And it’s even more breathtaking than you might have guessed.
Designer and artist Michael König of Berlin, Germany, created this time-lapse sequence of photographs taken by Ron Garan, Satoshi Furukawa and the crew of expeditions 28 and 29 onboard the International Space Station from this past August to October. König believes the photos of Earth were taken from 217 miles (350 kilometers) up — a typical orbital altitude for the International Space Station (ISS) — and says they were captured at a rate of 25 pictures per second.
Very little color adjustment or other digital editing was done to the images before they were stitched together, “since in my opinion, the original footage itself already has an almost surreal and aesthetical visual nature,” König explained at Vimeo, the site where he uploaded the video. However, he sped up the footage so that “this is way faster than realtime,” he told Life’s Little Mysteries.
The Earth Time Lapse View from Space HD
Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km – All credit goes to them.
HD, refurbished, smoothed, retimed, denoised, deflickered, cut, etc. All in all I tried to keep the looks of the material as original as possible, avoided adjusting the colors and the like, since in my opinion the original footage itself already has an almost surreal and aestethical visual nature.
| 1. | Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night | |
| 2. | Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night | |
| 3. | Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia | |
| 4. | Aurora Australis south of Australia | |
| 5. | Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night | |
| 6. | Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean | |
| 7. | Halfway around the World | |
| 8. | Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East | |
| 9. | Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East | |
| 10. | Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night | |
| 11. | Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay | |
| 12. | Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night | |
| 13. | Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam | |
| 14. | Views of the Mideast at Night | |
| 15. | Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea | |
| 16. | Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night | |
| 17. | Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean | |
| 18. | Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night |
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Music: Jan Jelinek | Do Dekor, faitiche back2001 w+p by Jan Jelinek, published by Scape Publishing / Universal janjelinek.com | faitiche.de
Image Courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth
Editing: Michael König