Star Trails as Seen From Space

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Astronaut Don Pettit has just put another wow-factor in astrophotography from the International Space Station, and provided a whole new perspective on a common but eye-catching photography technique of creating star trails. He posted two images on his Google+ page, with this description: “Star trails. I leave the shutter open for a long period, and our orbital motion makes the stars streak.” Just gorgeous.

See his second stunning image below.

Star trails, with a module from the International Space Station showing up in black. Credit: Don Pettit/NASA
Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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