First Aurora images taken in Space ?

a reply to: Saint Exupery

This raises the question; if all of the Soviet / Russian manned missions flew orbits inclined ~51° (which means they flew much further north than the US missions), are there any pictures of the aurora taken by Vostok, Voshkhod or early Soyuz or even Salyut 1?

Yes good question, but not sure what is the answer ?

Maybe was photographed but never released to the public ?

Who can say for sure ?

Thanks for all the replies!
Had no idea this thread topic would trigger a "no stars discussion"
but nevertheless, everyone's input is much appreciated.


I was hoping for an easy answer to the "first time?" question, so apparently I'll have to keep researching this subject
and will post again if more info is found.


Just for comparison here's a recent picture from the ISS,
and shows an Aurora with a similar looking blue color ...


Large - pbs.twimg.com...:large

Link - twitter.com...


Cheers

a reply to: easynow

Beautiful! That view is looking west across Poland and Germany. That's Warsaw at the bottom, with Poznan and Berlin making a straight line up the frame. On the right is the Baltic Sea with lower Scandinavia above it.



Because the ISS has to be accessible from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, its orbit is inclined >51° to the equator, so it sees the aurora often.

It's not the clearest image, but it pre-dates the Skylab ones!

This document

www.dtic.mil...

discusses the interpretation of satellite imagery taken by what were then classified military meteorological satellites. This image from November 1971 shows aurora activity over northern Europe and Scandinavia.



This article shows one from December 1970:

journals.ametsoc.org...

a reply to: OneBigMonkeyToo

The UK is at the bottom-center. The low countries are to its right. Lower Scandinavia is just right of center. The bright spot 1/3rd of the way down the right edge is Leningrad.