I know it's a bit of a stretch, but these were too beautiful not to share. Taken by the astronauts during the recent Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-118 mission. Talk about some of the most amazing pictures from space, certainly that I've seen in a long time. So good, and real they almost look fake. Here's one place that atmospheric haze isn't a problem. (the guy that posted them works at an internet based Mac sales company - don't be put off by the commercial look of the url)

Brad

http://jamie.macsales.com/sts118a/index.html

Not quite perfect, there seems to be some blue fringing on the Earth

Nice photos. What cameras do they use these days?

Thanks for posting!

Canon G7

Can't say for definite, but Hasselblad still talk up their involvement in space. Quite an interesting read if only to realise that they had to completely re-engineer the cameras with special materials as the traditional lubricants in the camera evaporate in the vacuum of space - guess it is not so easy just to lob you Nikon, Camera, or whatever in your knapsack and Jet into space.

Hasselblad In Space

The next question will be can you take your Canon 1DsIII into space on board Virgin Galactic and will it work during the zero G portion of the flight?

I'm guessing all you would need to defeat the vacuum of space would be an underwater housing. I also guess most cameras would work in a zero-g environment, they work for skydivers.

Apparently the first hassy in space was standard


But then later it says


There we have it, proof that the moon landings were fake

Totally a wild guess, but not sure about underwater housings working in space. Atmospheric pressure increases when under water so the casing and seals are designed to keep stuff out, not in.

Those images look fantastic.

Skydivers aren't in a zero-g environment; otherwise, they wouldn't be, er, "diving"! Camera and skydiver are accelerating at the same rate during free-fall, at 9.8 m/sec/sec.

Gorgeous images indeed.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=22929

That shows their cameras.

Just as astronauts are whilst in orbit. Only they're travelling forward fast enough for their trajectory to follow the curve of the earth.

Zero G simply means unaffected by gravity, not the lack of gravity. So falling qualifies. The only real difference is wind resistance.

Who's to say thats not a natural blue fringing. I don't know what camera they use but do know that NASA gets the top quality chips with the least amount of imperfections reserved for them from the chip manufacturers.

*wooosh*

My PhD was in space electronics (near enough), so I can probably answer this. In low earth orbit (LEO), where the ISS and the Shuttle live, there isn't much more radiation than you'd get in a high-altitude aircraft, so chances are that if you were in a pressurised cabin you could use more or less any camera you like and it should just work. You might, very occasionally, have to power-cycle it if the embedded processor glitches, and you might also very occasionally have a bright or dark pixel due to a cosmic ray impact on the CCD.

As for working in a vacuum, I very much doubt that a conventional DSLR would work correctly -- if it worked at all, it probably wouldn't work for very long. You'd probably get outgassing from the lubricants used in the mechanical parts, there's a good chance the shutter would stick in place either due to that or other vacuum effects, the temperatures involved would probably go outside the camera's design parameters, and most likely the CCD would overheat. Another phenomenon called differential charging would probably fry the electronics within a few minutes too. Having said that, a diver's camera housing would probably stand a reasonable chance of working -- they can usually stand quite significant positive pressure, so 1 atmosphere pushing outwards is probably going to be OK, assuming that the materials used in all the seals can cope with vacuum.

The act of falling is most definitely an effect of gravity. All falling bodies fall with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 which is gravitational acceleration. Skydivers are definitely not in a zero G environment as they are undergoing gravitational acceleration. Air resistance which the skydiver can vary by contracting or expanding his/her surface area can slow acceleration but there is always a constant acceleration otherwise a skydiver could stay in the air indefinitely until he chose to descend. Astronauts traveling in orbit are traveling fast enough that they constantly bend around the Earth and the centrifugal force cancels out the gravitational force resulting in a zero-G environment. So they are actually constantly falling at the same time they are traveling laterally but at such a speed that they are traveling around the bend in the Earth and this is what creates the Zero G environment. The 2 are not comparable.

Once a skydiver reaches ternminal velocity the wind resistence is equal to the gravitational force and they thus have equal forces acting upwards and downwards. Thus they are at 0G. Just as sitting here I am at 1G. Being able to change that by moving my body does not change the physics.

Don´t you just love photography?

Rob C

Last week, I watched the shuttle landing on HD. They ran a story about the crew changeover at the space station, and one of the astronauts was taking a picture of the others (inside of course) to commemorate the occasion. He was definitely using a DSLR, and it definitely wasn't a Canon. Either Nikon or Kodak.

You are correct Mahleu regarding terminal velocity and I was incorrect to use the words constant acceleration as terminal velocity is a constant velocity state with no acceleration. You are also correct that once a skydiver reaches true terminal velocity (no acceleration, falling at constant velocity) , the net force acting on him/her is 0, however anything that alters that velocity, either acceleratory i.e decreasing wind resistance by tucking or diving,etc. or deceleratory i.e. increasing wind resistance by increasing drag, opening parachute, etc. will eliminate that perfect zero G environment. So I will concede that it is possible to achieve at least for a very small time a very limited zero G environment, however, it cannot be maintained. Changing body position even by a relatively small amount, changes drag/air resistance which imbalances the opposing forces. Compare this to an astronaut who maintains a constant zero or near zero G environment by maintaining the speed and trajectory necessary to maintain orbit.

Now what all this has to do with photography I have no clue and now my head hurts and I am remembering how much I hated studying physics. I need a beer.

great thread, now this is one place I'd certainly like to take the camera !!

simon

To prepare a camera for use in the Arctic/Antarctic [in the off season!], you winterise it. This means removing all the lubricants, as they are not effective at such low temperatures. You would do the same for the mechanical aspects of DSLRs in space, if they have to go outside, that is.

I remember reading a report (a day or two before the D3 was officially announced) that NASA had purchased a large number of Nikon D2xs.

Not sure if these are for the space projects, anyway I think they are great pictures because of the content and the fact that they seemed to have been leaked all over the web! I wonder who'll be the first to get in trouble with copyright abuse!!!!!