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Posts Tagged ‘NASA’

Rare Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens designed for NASA could fetch $150,000 at auction

08 Jun

If you think Nikon’s Nikkor Z 58mm F0.95 S Noct lens is impressive, set your sights on a rare Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens from 1966. The lens was designed for NASA to photograph the moon’s far side during Apollo missions. There were only 10 copies of the lens ever made, six of which went to NASA. One of these lenses is currently up for auction by Leitz Photographica Auction.

Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens. Image courtesy of Leitz Photographica Auction.

Granted, if you want the super-fast prime, you’ll have to pay a steep cost. At the time of writing, the highest bid is €55,000 (about $ 67,000 USD), which is €5,000 higher than the starting bid, although the auction doesn’t officially kick off until June 12. Organizers estimate that the hammer price could reach up to €120,000 (roughly $ 146,000).

Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens. Image courtesy of Leitz Photographica Auction.

The copy up for auction has serial number 2594563 and is listed as being in beautiful condition with clean optics. Leitz Photographica Auction rates the lens as A/B condition. The lens is mounted to a modified Nikon F body (serial number 6477895), and the lens includes a removable tripod mount. According to an interview with Insider, Andreas Schwieger of Leitz Photographica Auction believes the lens for sale is one of the half-dozen lenses that were supplied to NASA.

Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens. Image courtesy of Leitz Photographica Auction.

It’s a fascinating lens. Of the four copies that weren’t sent to NASA for use in space, three were sent to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick for the film ‘Barry Lyndon.’ Some of the film’s scenes were lit only by candlelight, necessitating the use of an F0.7 lens, which was mounted on a modified Michell camera. The film went on to win the 1976 Oscar for its cinematography. Zeiss kept the final lens for its Carl Zeiss factory museum.

Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens. Image courtesy of Leitz Photographica Auction.

The Zeiss 50mm F0.7 lens up for auction is part of the 38th Leitz Photographica Auction and is lot 329 of 469 total lots. There are many interesting pieces of photographic history in the auction catalog, including some beautiful Leica cameras and lenses.

Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm F0.7 lens. Image courtesy of Leitz Photographica Auction.

Some other unique items up for sale include a ‘Luxus’ model gold-plated Leica wrapped in lizard skin, a Leica MP2 with Electric Motor and a Leica from 1924 that was owned by Ernst Leitz II, the man who manufactured the first Leica cameras. There are some other items owned by important figures in photography, including three Rolleiflex cameras owned by Walker Evans and a couple of Leica cameras used by Italian paparazzo, Felice Quinto.

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NASA Ingenuity helicopter prepares for the first powered, controlled flight on another planet

25 Mar

NASA has announced that it is preparing to launch its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter no earlier than April 8. Ingenuity’s maiden flight will mark the first attempt at a powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. Before Ingenuity can lift off, the team must meet numerous challenging milestones.

The Mars Perseverance Rover landed on Mars on February 18. Since then, the rover has been sending important images and data back to Earth while the team goes through different instrument checks and testing procedures. Since then, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has remained attached to the belly of Perseverance.

However, the operation has experienced progress. On March 21, Perseverance deployed the ‘guitar-case shaped graphite composite debris shield’ that protected Ingenuity when Perseverance landed last month. Perseverance is now in transit to the ‘airfield’ where Ingenuity will attempt to fly. After Ingenuity is deployed, the helicopter will have 30 Martian days, known as sols, to perform its test flight campaign. This is equal to 31 Earth days.

‘When NASA’s Sojourner rover landed on Mars in 1997, it proved that roving the Red Planet was possible and completely redefined our approach to how we explore Mars. Similarly, we want to learn about the potential Ingenuity has for the future of science research,’ said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. ‘Aptly named, Ingenuity is a technology demonstration that aims to be the first powered flight on another world and, if successful, could further expand our horizons and broaden the scope of what is possible with Mars exploration.’

‘When NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter attempts its first test flight on the Red Planet, the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will be close by, as seen in this artist’s concept.’ Caption and image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It’s difficult enough to get a helicopter to Mars, and that accomplishment is the result of years of work by many talented people and considerable financial resources. When designing Ingenuity, the team had to ensure it was small and light enough to be an acceptable payload for Perseverance. The helicopter is solar-powered, and it must be efficient enough to have the required energy to operate on Mars and survive cold Martian nights.

There are significant challenges to flying on Mars. The Red Planet has about one-third of Earth’s gravity, for starters, and the atmosphere is also only 1% as dense as Earth’s at the surface. The weather poses unique challenges, with nighttime temperatures dropping to -130° F (-90° C), which can wreak havoc on electrical components.

‘Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team inspect the flight model (the actual vehicle going to the Red Planet), inside the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide (7.62-meter-wide) vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on February 1, 2019.’ Caption and image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

‘Every step we have taken since this journey began six years ago has been uncharted territory in the history of aircraft,’ said Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. ‘And while getting deployed to the surface will be a big challenge, surviving that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting it and keeping it powered, will be an even bigger one.’

Once Ingenuity is in place, squarely in the center of its 33′ x 33′ (10m x 10m) airfield, the complicated deployment process can begin. ‘As with everything with the helicopter, this type of deployment has never been done before,’ said Farah Alibay, Mars Helicopter integration lead for the Perseverance rover. ‘Once we start the deployment there is no turning back. All activities are closely coordinated, irreversible, and dependent on each other…’

‘NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover’s descent stage was recently stacked atop the rover at Kennedy Space Center, and the two were placed in the back shell that will help protect them on their journey to Mars. In this image, taken on April 29, 2020, the underside of the rover is visible, along with the Ingenuity helicopter attached (lower center of the image). The outer ring is the base of the back shell, while the bell-shaped objects covered in red material are covers for engine nozzles on the descent stage. The wheels are covered in a protective material that will be removed before launch.’ Image and caption credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If all goes according to plan, the deployment process will take six sols. On the sixth scheduled sol of the deployment phase, NASA states that ‘the team will need to confirm three things: that Ingenuity’s four legs are firmly on the surface of Jezero Crater, that the rover did, indeed, drive about 16 feet (about 5 meters) away, and that both helicopter and rover are communicating via their onboard radios. This milestone also initiates the 30-sol clock during which time all preflight checks and flight tests must take place.’

Artist’s rendition of the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ingenuity is not carrying special instruments, and unlike the rest of the mission, its goals are not scientific. Ingenuity is solely an experimental engineering test flight. The team wants to see if it can fly on Mars. When Ingenuity is ready to fly, JPL mission controllers will send and receive flight instructions through Perseverance. Hopefully, early next month, Ingenuity will successfully launch from Mars’ surface. When it does, it will mark a monumental achievement for NASA, JPL and countless others.

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NASA uses infrared imaging to discover water on sunlit surface of the Moon

27 Oct

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has used its onboard Faint Object infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) to discover water molecules on the sunlit surface of the Moon. For the first time, there are indications that water may be distributed across the Moon’s surface, and not limited to just cold, dark areas of the lunar surface.

SOFIA’s infrared camera, used in conjunction with a 106-inch diameter telescope, picked up ‘the specific wavelength unique to water molecules, at 6.1 microns, and discovered a relatively surprising concentration in sunny Clavius Crater.’ This crater is one of the largest craters visible from Earth and is in the Moon’s southern hemisphere.

Casey Honniball is the lead author who published the results as part of her graduate thesis work at the University of Hawaii at M?noa. She is now a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Of the discovery, Honniball says, ‘Prior to the SOFIA observations, we knew there was some kind of hydration. But we didn’t know how much, if any, was actually water molecules – like we drink every day – or something more like drain cleaner. Without a thick atmosphere, water on the sunlit lunar surface should just be lost to space. Yet, somehow we’re seeing it. Something is generating the water, and something must be trapping it there.’ If you’d like to read the full paper, it has been published in Nature Astronomy.

Data gathered using SOFIA’s onboard camera shows water in Clavius Crater in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million, ‘roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface.’ Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters says, ‘We had indications that H2O – the familiar water we know – might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon. Now we know it is there. This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration.’

It’s not a lot of water, about 1% of the water found in the Sahara desert, but it’s a significant discovery. The work of the SOFIA team has uncovered new questions about how water is created and how it persists on the airless Moon. Further, water is a critical resource in deep space exploration. NASA’s Artemis program is keen to learn more about the presence of water on the Moon, and ideally, discover a way to access water in its pursuit of establishing a sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2030.

‘Water is a valuable resource, for both scientific purposes and for use by our explorers,’ said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.’ Bleacher continues, ‘If we can use the resources at the Moon, then we can carry less water and more equipment to help enable new scientific discoveries.’

As to how the water molecules ended up on the surface remains an unanswered question. One theory is that ‘Micrometeorites raining down on the lunar surface, carrying small amounts of water, could deposit the water on the lunar surface upon impact.’ Another theory involves a two-step process ‘whereby the Sun’s solar wind delivers hydrogen to the lunar surface and causes a chemical reaction with oxygen-baring minerals in the soil to create hydroxyl’ which is then transformed into water by radiation from micrometeorites.

‘This illustration highlights the Moon’s Clavius Crater with an illustration depicting water trapped in the lunar soil there, along with an image of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) that found sunlit lunar water.’ Image and caption credits: NASA/Daniel Rutter

SOFIA, which is a modified Boeing 747SP jetliner, typically focuses on very distant objects, such as black holes, galaxies and star clusters. In fact, the newly-published results are from SOFIA’s very first mission looking at the Moon. The team was essentially testing the tracking capabilities of its equipment, and this test produced a significant discovery. Additional flights will take a further look at the lunar surface.

SOFIA’s standard observations take place during a 10-hour overnight flight and captures images at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths. You can view some of the images it has captured by clicking here.

This is far from the first time NASA’s camera technology has produced meaningful, significant scientific discovery. Looking to the future, NASA’s Perseverance is currently about halfway to Mars, carrying a rover outfitted with a record-breaking 19 cameras. These cameras will capture incredibly detailed images of the Martian landscape.

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NASA shares photos captured by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft during its 6-second stay on an asteroid

23 Oct

NASA has released pictures taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that show the moment it touched down on the Bennu asteroid 200 million miles from Earth. The craft left Cape Canaveral a little over four years ago with the aim of intersecting the asteroid, and landed on the surface within three feet of the intended target on 20th October.

As the craft approached the asteroid its SamCam camera captured images at a rate of one every 1.25 seconds, recording the successful touch-down and the lift-off just six seconds later. While in contact with the surface OSIRIS-Rex used its Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) arm to collect samples of materials which it will bring back to Earth for analysis in March next year. The arm blasts the surface with pure nitrogen to force materials into the collecting chamber with the target of bringing back 60g of samples.

The aim of the mission and the sample collection is to help scientists learn more about the creation of the solar system and to see if organic molecules like those that make-up life on Earth can be detected. NASA says the value of this mission will be that it will be able to study materials that haven’t been subjected to the harsh process of entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

‘The O in OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins – understanding the origins of the solar system, which includes the origin of life on Earth. Bennu, the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission, will help us answer important astrobiology questions such as the role asteroids may have played in delivering life-forming compounds to Earth. It is a primitive carbonaceous asteroid that holds the record of our solar system’s earliest history.’

SamCam is only one of three cameras attached to the craft, the others being PolyCam which has an 8in telescope and was responsible for spotting the asteroid, and MapCam which checks the area on which the craft is to land.

The 82-image timelapse of the touch-and-go event shown here was taken over a five minute period, beginning when the craft was 82 feet from the surface and ending when it had backed away to 43 feet. It’s very cool but I have to say, if I’d driven all that way I would have shot it in color!

Here’s a video about how the craft approached the asteroid and mapped out the landing site.

For more information on the OSIRIS-REx mission visit the NASA website.

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NASA translates Milky Way images into sound using sonification

09 Oct

NASA has used sonification, the process of turning data into audio in order to perceive it in a new way, to reveal the ‘sounds’ of our universe. A video containing the generated audio was recently published by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The data, in this case, comes from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other telescopes that imaged the Milky Way in optical and infrared light in addition to observing X-rays.

NASA creates composite images of space using the data gathered by its observatories, providing the public with a visual look at things that are otherwise beyond the means of human perception. Sight represents only one way that humans can perceive data, however, with NASA pointing out that sonification makes it possible to experience the same data through hearing.

The space agency explains:

The center of our Milky Way galaxy is too distant for us to visit in person, but we can still explore it. Telescopes gives us a chance to see what the Galactic Center looks like in different types of light. By translating the inherently digital data (in the form ones and zeroes) captured by telescopes in space into images, astronomers create visual representations that would otherwise be invisible to us.

But what about experiencing these data in other senses like hearing? Sonification is the process that translates data into sound, and a new project brings the center of the Milky Way to listeners for the first time.

This project represents the first time data from the center of the Milky Way has been processed as audio, something that involves playing the ‘sounds’ of space from left to right for each image. In this case, NASA set the intensity of the light in the images as the volume control, while stars and other ‘compact sources’ are translated as individual notes. The space dust and gases are played as a fluctuating drone, and the vertical position of light controls the pitch.

NASA has provided multiple different versions of its sonification project, including solo tracks that provide audio for observations made by each source individually (Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, etc.), plus there’s a version where all of the data is combined together to form an ensemble with each telescope source serving as a different instrument. Listeners can ultimately hear audio that translates data observed across a massive 400 light-years, according to the space agency.

‘Sound plays a valuable role in our understanding of the world and cosmos around us,’ NASA says, pointing out that the observations from each telescope represent different aspects of the galaxy around us. The image sourced from Hubble represents the energy in parts of the Milky Way where stars are forming, whereas the image from Spitzer provides data on the ‘complex structures’ within the galaxy’s dust clouds.

NASA has a website dedicated to sound produced from Chandra observation data called ‘A Universe of Sound.’ Additional audio tracks can be found on this website, including ones of various pulsars, star systems and notable celestial features like the ‘Pillars of Creation.’

Via: Laughing Squid

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NASA and ESA Solar Orbiter spacecraft sends back closest ever images of the Sun

18 Jul

NASA and the ESA revealed the first images of the Sun from its Solar Orbiter joint mission, providing an unprecedented look at our star. The images have revealed a new mystery that scientists have named ‘campfires’ — this refers to miniature solar flares on the Sun described by ESA as ‘omnipresent.’

ESA says the early technical verification phase of the mission knowtn as commissioning has been completed, meaning Solar Orbiter is just getting started. Despite this early stage, the mission has already revealed new phenomena, underscoring the promising results the space agencies anticipate from their joint spacecraft.

Solar Orbiter was launched in February 2020 with the goal of, among other things, capturing images of the Sun at the closest distance thus far attainable. The mission includes half a dozen remote-sensing telescopes and four in situ monitoring instruments for studying the environment around Solar Orbiter.

Data gathered by both sets of instruments will, hopefully, provide scientists with new insights about the star and solar wind. Kicking things off are the ‘campfires’ featured in the first set of images above. Solar Orbiter used its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument to capture the images — it includes an imager capable of capturing the entire Sun, plus two high-resolution telescopes.

It’s unknown at this time whether campfires are entirely different than big flares or simply miniature versions of them. Talking about the newly discovered phenomena is EUI instrument principal investigator David Berghmans, who said:

The campfires are little relatives of the solar flares that we can observe from Earth, million or billion times smaller. The Sun might look quiet at the first glance, but when we look in detail, we can see those miniature flares everywhere we look.

The EUI is only one of the imagers on Solar Orbiter; it is joined by the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) used to capture high-resolution measurements of the Sun’s magnetic field lines. The latter instrument has also provided scientists with another ‘first,’ having revealed a single active region on the Sun that is experiencing bursts of energetic particles that, until now, experts were unaware existed.

‘That is a first,’ said PHI principal investigator Sami Solanki. ‘We have never been able to measure the magnetic field at the back of the Sun.’

In time, Solar Orbiter will reach within 42 million kilometers (26 million miles) of the Sun, covering almost a full quarter of the distance between the star and our planet. This gradual change in distance will take place over the next two years, providing the space agencies with increasingly detailed close-up images of the Sun.

NASA Solar Orbiter project scientist Holly Gilbert said, ‘The first data are already demonstrating the power behind a successful collaboration between space agencies and the usefulness of a diverse set of images in unraveling some of the Sun’s mysteries.’

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A decade of sun: NASA captured 425 million photos of the sun and made a time lapse

30 Jun

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been very busy capturing images of the sun over the last decade. From June 2, 2010 through June 1, 2020, the SDO captured 425 million images of the sun. Per NASA, the team amassed about 20 million gigabytes of images of the sun in the past decade and with that data, NASA compiled 10 years’ worth of images into the amazing timelapse video above.

Using three primary instruments, the SDO captures an image of the sun every 0.75 seconds. One of these instruments, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), captures images every 12 seconds at 10 different wavelengths of light. In the timelapse video published by NASA, we see photos of the sun captured at the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 17.1 nanometers. This wavelength allows us to view the sun’s outermost layer, called the corona.

Generally, the hour-long timelapse video features a compiled image from each hour of every day for the past 10 years. Although, there are a few exceptions. There are dark frames caused by the Earth or moon eclipsing SDO as they pass between the spacecraft and the sun. There was also a week-long outage of the AIA instrument in 2016. Any off-center images of the sun are due to periodic instrument calibration.

As you can imagine, the SDO has witnessed many interesting events during its period of observation. In the video above, at 6:20, you can see a prominence eruption from the lower right area of the sun from June 7, 2011. At 12:24, you can see the transit of Venus across the face of the sun on June 5, 2012. This event won’t occur again until the year 2117. On July 19, 2012, a brilliant display of looping plasma showed a complex event in the sun’s magnetic field, this can be seen at 13:06. About six weeks later, on August 31, 2012, the ‘most iconic eruption of this solar cycle’ occurred, witnessed at 13:50 in the video.

Jumping ahead to 36:18, you can view Mercury as it transits across the face of the sun on May 9, 2016. It is more difficult to spot than Venus, but you can learn more about it here. Mercury appears again at 57:38, as it transited the sun again on November 11, 2019. This will Mercury’s last transit until 2032. A full list of interesting events you can witness in the video can be found in the description on YouTube.

‘An X8.2 class solar flare flashes in the edge of the Sun on Sept. 10, 2017. This image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171 and 304 angstrom wavelengths.’ Image and text credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Scott Wiessinger (USRA) was the lead producer on the video above. Tom Bridgman (GST) was the lead data visualizer. Leading scientific writing was Mara Johnson-Groh (Wyle Information Systems). The music, ‘Solar Observer,’ was written and produced by Lars Leonhard.

If you’d like to learn more about NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, you can find a wealth of fascinating information by clicking here.

Earlier this year, NASA published a shorter video that covered 10 of the most important things scientists have learned during SDO’s first decade in space. You can check that out below.

Image credit: Images via NASA/GSFC/SDO

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NASA Curiosity rover breaks its own record with new 1.8-billion-pixel Mars panorama

09 Mar

On March 4, NASA shared the highest-resolution panoramic Mars image ever captured by its Curiosity rover. The panorama features 1.8 billion pixels and is comprised of more than 1,000 individual images captured by the rover over the Thanksgiving 2019 holiday break in the US.

NASA explains that Curiosity captured two different panoramas using two different lenses: the record-breaking 1.8-billion-pixel panorama using the Mast Camera (‘Mastcam’) with a telephoto lens and a smaller 650-million-pixel panorama using a medium-angle lens. The larger panorama captured with the telephoto lens was not able to include most of the rover in the final image, but the lower-resolution panorama does include Curiosity amid the landscape.

Curiosity’s smaller 650-million-pixel panorama. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The Mastcam is mounted at a height of 2m (6.5ft) on Curiosity; it supports capturing color images and videos using ‘left eye’ and ‘right eye’ lenses featuring 34mm and 100mm focal lengths. The camera has a resolution of 2MP, which produces images with a 1600 x 1200 resolution. When recording video, Curiosity’s Mastcam can capture 10 frames per second. According to NASA, the rover’s 8GB storage can hold 5,500 or more Raw frames.

While the mission team was away on holiday leave from November 24 to December 1, Curiosity worked to snap images using Mastcam over a six-and-a-half-hour period of time spread across four days. The camera was programmed to take the images from between noon and 2 PM local time to ensure that the lighting was consistent for the eventual panorama.

The new record 1.8-billion-pixel image. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA explains this holiday break provided a rare moment of downtime for the rover, which typically does not stay in one place long enough to capture so many images from the same vantage point. The resulting 1.8-billion-pixel panorama, which exceeds the rover’s previous record 1.3-billion-pixel image, took ‘months’ to assemble.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada said:

While many on our team were at home enjoying turkey, Curiosity produced this feast for the eyes. This is the first time during the mission we’ve dedicated our operations to a stereo 360-degree panorama.

The public can download a full-resolution version of the 1.8-billion-pixel panorama in JPEG and TIFF formats from NASA JPL’s website here, as well as the 650-million-pixel version from the same link. At its highest resolution, the panorama has a massive 2.43GB file size. The space agency offers lower quality versions with file sizes ranging from 82MB all the way down to 350KB.

In addition, NASA has an online 360-degree viewer to present the panorama in full screen with a zoom tool.

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NASA is asking the public to use their smartphones to help track light pollution caused by satellites

06 Mar

A newly launched NASA project called Satellite Streak Watcher aims to assess the night sky light pollution caused by low-Earth orbit satellites using images captured by the public. On its SciStarter project page, NASA asks anyone interested in participating to ‘Photographically record satellite streaks across the night sky to monitor this form of sky pollution.’

The space agency explains its concerns related to the satellites, stating, ‘As more satellites are placed into orbit, they will become an increasing problem to astronomers on the ground.’ Participants can use the Heavens-Above website to determine when and where satellites will pass over their local sky; images are uploaded and shared on the project’s website.

The new public science project follows announcements from a number of companies that have launched — or plan to launch — large numbers of small satellites into low-Earth orbit.

The most notable example of this comes from SpaceX, which has spent the past few years working on its Starlink mission. The private space company expects to ultimately launch thousands of small satellites into very-low Earth orbit (VLEO) in order to provide Internet access around the world. As of March 1, 2020, the company has delivered 302 of these satellites into space with plans to launch more throughout the year.

Critics have expressed concerns that Starlink and other projects like it will have a negative impact on the night sky, introducing light pollution that will disrupt astronomy. These satellites also impact astrophotography by adding thin, bright streaks of light to long-exposure images, prompting complaints from photographers who increasingly struggle to deal with light pollution.

DPReview reader Guido Forrier shared the below image in our Astrophotography forum, showing a series of fifteen Starlink satellites flying across the sky in one of his night sky photographs. When we asked what his thoughts on the matter, he said ‘I am surprised and incensed that apart from the already high light pollution, those satellites [have] also come to disturb. [There’s] a lot of rubbish is already flying in space and I see it regularly burning in the atmosphere.’

Photograph by Guido Forrier, shared with permission.

Until now, most efforts to combat light pollution have focused on the ground, not the sky. Light produced by street lamps, billboards, parking lot lights and more is reflected in the night sky, making it hard to see and photograph stars, particularly in regions close to big cities. The problem has spurred the creation of a number of Dark Sky Reserves throughout the world; these are regions of public and private land with ample natural darkness and starkly visible stars.

However, experts have expressed concerns over light pollution that results from satellites launched into low-Earth orbit, as well as more ridiculous future concepts like an artificial moon and space billboards. Because this type of light pollution comes from the sky rather than the planet’s surface, traveling to Dark Sky Reserves won’t help photographers avoid the issue.

According to Astronomy.com, the Starlink satellites are particularly disruptive to the night sky due to their shallow orbit, which is necessary for delivering Internet service to people on Earth. More than 40,000 of these small satellites may eventually be launched under the Starlink mission, and though SpaceX is experimenting with anti-reflective coating on the satellites, it is unclear whether that will be sufficient for reducing the disruption caused by the spacecraft.

MIT Technology Review points out that satellites depend on their reflective nature to help keep them cool; the experimental anti-reflective coating may cause thermal issues for the Starlink satellites. SpaceX applied the coating to the bottom of one of the 60 satellites it launched in December 2019 in order to test its potential impact on performance.

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer Jonathan McDowell had told Technology Review at the time that while the reflective coating is ‘worth a try,’ he fears it ‘will be offset by the fact that they are moving the constellation to a lower orbit.’

NASA anticipates its Satellite Streak Watcher operating as a long-term project in order to gather data on satellite light pollution over time. The project currently has 136 members and 20 images, which include shots ranging from bright dots on the night sky to several long streaks of light bunched together. Though NASA says citizen scientists can use a basic tripod and most newer smartphones to capture the images, astrophotographers who have more capable camera systems are also welcomed to share their images.

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NASA astronaut Jessica Meir uses Nikon D5 to snap two space selfies

31 Jan

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir caught the public’s attention over the weekend when she published two selfies captured during a spacewalk using a Nikon D5 camera. Meir has shared a number of images from the International Space Station since her arrival in September 2019, though few were as impressive as her full-body selfie captured as a reflection in ISS solar panels.

Meir shared the images on January 26, tagging them with the #SundaySelfie hashtag. One is a traditional shot of her face while the other image is a full-body shot of Meir in her spacesuit as seen reflected in some solar panels. The Earth is visible as a bright band of light behind her, as are bits and pieces of the space station.

As for the camera, Meir explains that she used a Nikon D5 camera with a 28mm lens and special protective housing that enables the camera to operate in space. NASA ordered a total of 53 unmodified Nikon D5 DSLRs from the camera company in 2017 with the intention of using them for recording ISS activities, as well as vehicular activities and astronaut training.

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