APOD: Flying Over the Earth at Night (2012 Mar 05)

[Vec]

Spectacular video. I would love to see a similar video with a compilation of nebulas. I did see in the video a segment of the ISS flying over the Red Sea from Northwest to southwest. Quite amazing! Hey NASA... I would gladly spend my tax dollars putting colonies on the Moon and Mars... Seriously.

[bulbearcub]

I think I saw the USA's east coast.....I can't be sure because the picture was a bit blurred: I believe someone moved

[Zinov Konstantin]

I see California at 0:15...0:20, Mexico at 0:25, Andy at 0:40
Florida at 0:50
London, La Mansh, Paris at 1:05
Italy at 1:10
Cyprus at 1:15
Antarctida at 1:30
Super fine

[zephsmom]

The penisulas stand out best for identification. However, some such as India and Italy seem in odd relationship to each other. Could someone tell me the angle the orbit makes with the equator and how long it takes to complete one orbit in actual time. That might make it easier to identify less obvious features.

[Chris Peterson]

The penisulas stand out best for identification. However, some such as India and Italy seem in odd relationship to each other. Could someone tell me the angle the orbit makes with the equator and how long it takes to complete one orbit in actual time. That might make it easier to identify less obvious features. :P 8-)

The ISS completes one orbit every 91 minutes, and has an inclination of 51.6°. Keep in mind that it is really too low to easily see large peninsulas like Italy in anything the form we are used to. Most people look at views from the ISS and imagine that they are seeing much larger parts of the Earth than they actually are.

[Laszlo]

Does anyone know why most of the city lights on the left side of the video at about 0:27 - 0:30 are green??

I found a post elsewhere suggesting that these were due to Mercury-vapor lights as opposed to the sodium lights that seem to be ubiquitous elsewhere. I think one of the green cities in Guatemala that you can make out is Quetzaltenango. Here's a photo of Quetzaltenango at night that I found via Google:
http://www.galasdeguatemala.com/r1978.search.htm

Looks like their predominant lighting is mercury-vapor lamps?
Cool stuff!

[bitmeizer]

The video compilation is credited to Bitmeizer. However, clicking on that link brings up a 'David's Random Video Collection' that has links to many types of videos that seemed to have been selected by a David Peterson but which have been noted as favourites by Bitmeizer. Assuming that Bitmeizer is not David Peterson (which seems likely in view of the favourites notings) then if the video was compiled by Bitmeizer why was Bitmeizer not a link to information on him or her?

Being the said David Peterson/Bitmeizer, yes, we are one and the same person. I've been tidying up my channel a bit since receiving the recent attention - the default view on the channel is now a list of my own uploads, with my 'favourites' listed separately now to avoid confusion. As to the link on this page, it's out of my hands

[deathfleer]

80,,000km in 90 minutes, that's about 50,000km/hour or,is the station stationary and the earth rotating?

At sea they have nautical miles...then in space, there should be astronautical km.

[Wing Nut]

80,,000km in 90 minutes, that's about 50,000km/hour or,is the station stationary and the earth rotating?

At sea they have nautical miles...then in space, there should be astronautical km.

The average speed of the ISS is actually 27,743.8 km/h, 17,239.2 mph (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station) and while there isn't a unit called an "astronautical" kilometer, there is one called an "astronomical unit" which is the distance from the sun to the earth equal to about 149,597,870.7 kilometers (92,955,807.3 mi).

[bystander]

At sea they have nautical miles...then in space, there should be astronautical km.

You could say that the meter, and hence the kilometer, is an astronautical unit of measure.
A meter is defined as the length traveled by light in vacuum in 1 ⁄ 299,792,458 of a second.

[Beyond]

So that's why i have such a hard time with the metric system distance measuring.It's based on the speed of light and it's too fast for me to grab hold of it.

[DavidLeodis]

The video compilation is credited to Bitmeizer. However, clicking on that link brings up a 'David's Random Video Collection' that has links to many types of videos that seemed to have been selected by a David Peterson but which have been noted as favourites by Bitmeizer. Assuming that Bitmeizer is not David Peterson (which seems likely in view of the favourites notings) then if the video was compiled by Bitmeizer why was Bitmeizer not a link to information on him or her?

Being the said David Peterson/Bitmeizer, yes, we are one and the same person. I've been tidying up my channel a bit since receiving the recent attention - the default view on the channel is now a list of my own uploads, with my 'favourites' listed separately now to avoid confusion. As to the link on this page, it's out of my hands

Thanks Bitmeizer for that clarification, which is appreciated.

[Ersatz]

video is nice but I don't like the blurred switching between scenes, that is not scientific, should just go straight to next scene in 1 frame; I think it starts somewhere over starfleet hq in San Francisco, going south over Mexico and South America

Blurred: What you say is true; the video switches from one clip to another in a more aesthetic way than a sudden jump. But bear in mind, this is APOD, a site devoted to showing the beauty of the universe, and is not intended to be "scientific". It is not supposed to be cutting-edge research. Just my own opinion; you may of course like or dislike whatever you want..

Ersatz

P.S.--"starfleet hq"? How "scientific" is that?

[sarabiga]

In the still image you see at the very front, before playing the video, not only Italy is plainly visible, but you can observe all the Venice area toward the bottom of the Adriatic sea. You can also see an ancient Roman road and I'll show you how. Now, the only part of Italy which is relatively dark is the Apennines mountain ridge, which starts from the bottom right of the still image and goes up along all the peninsula. At its beginning in the bottom right of the image, just below the dark area, still along its edge, you can see a chain of medium sized botches of light, like pearls, which are (from right to left) the cities of Parma (where Parmeasan cheese and Parma ham come from), Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna. You may know Modena and Bologna as that's where Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Ducati are still made and designed and where their historical factories are.
The line of the cities take you through a line of smaller lights to the Adriatic Sea, and then southern on. That is, visible from space, the track of the ancient roman Via Aemilia - hence the name of the region 'Emilia' where the above cities are.

And if you look very very very carefully, between the first and the second light from the right, along the dark edge of the Apennines, that's me staring up at you weaving with both hands: "Hullo, there!"

[Auchick]

I recognised Antarctica at around 1.45min - after all the cool aurora.

[Chris Peterson]

I recognised Antarctica at around 1.45min - after all the cool aurora.

You can't see Antarctica from the ISS, except possibly as a band right on the southern horizon. It simply doesn't get far enough south. From the ISS, the horizon is about 2200 km away, or 20° on the Earth. When the ISS is at its most southern point, S 51.6°, the southern horizon will be at a latitude of S 71°, which is pretty close to the edge of Antarctica.

[rr_carroll]

Since Orion leaps up from the horizon at very different angles (in the second case it's more of a handspring), I believe this means the two clips are from different times of the year.

And everything looks like Florida.

[Chris Peterson]

Since Orion leaps up from the horizon at very different angles (in the second case it's more of a handspring), I believe this means the two clips are from different times of the year.

That would be a reasonable assumption if it was always the same horizon. But it's not. The angle Orion makes with respect to the horizon depends on your latitude, and every time that the constellation shows up, the ISS is at a different latitude. So over a few hours, a wide range of horizon angles will be seen.

[jcjlf]

Wonderful !!! I wish I was there .
In the beginning ISS is overfliyng the US Pacific coast (at 0:16 LA just under the clouds), then Gulf of California, Mexico, Panama (0:31), then Equador and Peru (Titicaca see at 0:47, just before the siurise). Afterwards I can recognize at 0:49 the southeastern coast of USA (Florida in the middle), then Keys and Bahamas.
At 1:05 the ISS is flying over South of England (almost all of Europe can be seen here), then Paris (the brightest city in the middle), Adriatic (about 1:10), Greece and Turky. At 1:16 nice view of all Eastern Mediterranean Sea with Cyprus in the middle and Egypt (Nile Delta) upper right.
Kind regards, Emil

At 1:06 I also could distiguish clearly, left of Paris:
Belgium with the bright spots of Antwerp and Brussels and the bright stripe of the Meuse Valley;
the Netherlands with the Rotterdam region as the brightest spot and even my home town Utrecht !

[ViliMax]

That is a spectacular space journey around our frail home and it’s great to see this beauty although it inspires a bit of sadness because of impossibility for most of us to fly over …

[Greyhawk]

If anyone is interested the music is Freedom Fighters by Two Steps from Hell

[geckzilla]

If anyone is interested the music is Freedom Fighters by Two Steps from Hell

It is attributed on the APOD page.

[jwhit4300]

not so sure this is real, a reason why " The earth spins at 1000 mph
because of this NASA always uses this spin to shoot rockets off to
gain that extra 1000mph, but to gain the extra 1000mph you have to
shoot the rocket off to the east, this space station seems to be
flying north to south, and not on the same path, that concerns me with
many questions????

[Chris Peterson]

not so sure this is real, a reason why " The earth spins at 1000 mph
because of this NASA always uses this spin to shoot rockets off to
gain that extra 1000mph, but to gain the extra 1000mph you have to
shoot the rocket off to the east, this space station seems to be
flying north to south, and not on the same path, that concerns me with
many questions????

The ISS is in an orbit with an inclination of 51°. That means that while it is orbiting eastwards, it isn't orbiting over the equator. On each orbit, it reaches 51° north, and 51° south. That's why when you look at its orbit on most map projections, it looks sinusoidal. And it's why, depending on where it is in its orbit, it can have a major component of its direction either northward or southward.

iss-orbit.gif

[Guest]

1:05 Europe
1:11 (just below solar panels): Italy, then Greece
1:18 Israel, edge of solar panels following Suez Canal, then Red Sea, then into Saudi Arabia. Center of image over Sahara desert.