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The contrast of your body and your mind inside ... essentially a one-person spaceship, which is your spacesuit, where you're holding on for dear life to the shuttle or the station with one hand, and you are inexplicably in between what is just a pouring glory of the world roaring by, silently next to you — just the kaleidoscope of it, it takes up your whole mind. It's like the most beautiful thing you've ever seen just screaming at you on the right side, and when you look left, it's the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions. It's like a huge yawning endlessness on your left side and you're in between those two things and trying to rationalize it to yourself and trying to get some work done.
GaryN
reply to post by onebigmonkey
Both of those links go to images taken from inside the ISS, and are looking through the atmosphere around the Earth to see the stars. What part of that don't you understand? And I am not cherry picking Hadfields quotes, ot taking them out of context. He is on an EVA, he sees the Earth at one side, and at the other, looking into deep space, he sees nothing.
The contrast of your body and your mind inside ... essentially a one-person spaceship, which is your spacesuit, where you're holding on for dear life to the shuttle or the station with one hand, and you are inexplicably in between what is just a pouring glory of the world roaring by, silently next to you — just the kaleidoscope of it, it takes up your whole mind. It's like the most beautiful thing you've ever seen just screaming at you on the right side, and when you look left, it's the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions. It's like a huge yawning endlessness on your left side and you're in between those two things and trying to rationalize it to yourself and trying to get some work done.
Could it be any clearer? If you want further clarification of his statement, you should ask him, not rag on me for simply quoting what he clearly states.
What does space look like?
It looks like a carpet of countless tiny perfect unblinking lights in endless velvet, with the Milky Way as a glowing area of paler texture.
Why don't you take photos of the stars or the moon?
Most of the windows on the Space Station face the Earth, and the view is so rare and magnificent that it draws most of our attention. To photograph the stars we also need to make it dark, and the upwards-facing windows are in brightly-lit locations. And finally, the stars, though clear and bright from here, are not significantly different than as-viewed on a very clear and dark night on Earth.
Have you ever gone into the shadow of the ISS or another space ship while on a space walk? If so what was it like? Is it total darkness?
Edit: Thanks for the response! And good luck up there! I'll watch you every night you pass over Chicago!
[–]ColChrisHadfield[S] 43 points 1 year ago
When in space, if you look away from the Sun, it is total darkness. It's because there is no air to reflect and refract the light around you.
You can even take a picture looking at the Sun. The bright Sun will be blown out in the image, but space around it will be black.
The only light becomes the glow of the Earth and starlight. Very cool.
AndyMayhew
Here's a picture taken from Earth of the Moon and Venus. AND OH MY GOD THERE ARE NO STARS!!!!
It's all down to exposure. As has been pointed out time and time and time again whenever non photographers question photos of stars or the Moon etc. You need a long exposure to capture distant stars, but that means over exposure of closer, brighter objects like planets or the Moon. So you adjust the exposure according to what it is you are photographing. Maybe a bit of background research before making yourself look silly next time? Girls go for clever guys, not ignorant onesedit on 8-2-2014 by AndyMayhew because: (no reason given)
GaryN
an EVA astronaut can look away from the Earth, and the only one I can find who has talked about the view into deep space says it is totally black. I believe him until someone comes forward to challenge his statement.
I think it quite clearly means he was looking at the day side of our planet, lit by the Sun. If you look away from that into space, you will most definitely see nothing but blackness, as your eyes won't have enough time to become dark-adapted to see stars.
Even when the space walkers are on the night side of Earth, they have helmet lights and external ISS lights on, so that they could carry on working. Only when all lights are turned off can an astronaut see stars.
Explain then, how does the Hubble Space Telescope System work?.
GaryN
The only references to stars being seen are when looking through the Earth facing window, and the stars are visible in that band of atmosphere surrounding the Earth.
Here's a list of all EVA missions. Find any of them that talk about what deep space looks like. I got about half way through the list and gave up. Chris Hadfield is the only one who has stated clearly that it is black out there, but nobody will believe him, just shows how dumbed down the masses are.
Only the Military have the technology to make Hubble work.
The ESA and NASA are the only organisations with visible light space based telescopes, and that science is still classified as the ICBMs use it. Goddard is releasing SOME of the technology, through the "Can you see it now" program, but they will be selective about who they allow to license it.
ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
Hubble is not a regular telescope, and anyone who tries to put a regular telescope in space will see nothing, that's why nobody does it.
The only device that uses more or less regular optics is the HIRISE camera orbiting Mars, and that is because mars has sufficient atmoshere to create the light that such a camera needs. Try putting the HIRISE camera in a Lunar orbit, I doubt it will see much at all. Why do you think there is no stereo, hi-res camera sending back images from Lunar orbit? All the devices that do send images back are using IR and UV spectrographic imagers, not regular cameras.