alt Hacker NewsArtemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth
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Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019...), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...
I was confused when I first saw this photo, as I don't think I've ever before seen a nightside, moonlit Earth, exposed so that it looks like the dayside at a first glance. I wonder how many casual viewers actually realize it's the night side. A nice demonstration of how moonlight is pretty much exactly like sunlight, just much much dimmer. In particular it has the same color, even though moonlight is often thought of as bluish and sunlight as yellowish!
Much higher quality images are available on the NASA Image Library:
Dark Side of the Earth: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e000193/
Hello World: https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/fd02_for-pao/
On images-assets.nasa.gov, we can find the 5567x3712 resolution versions of these pictures:
Dark Side of the Earth: https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e000193/art002e00...
Hello World: https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e000192/art002e00...
There's something a bit weird having these digital photos and crisp digital audio and video of the astronauts, and seeing pictures of mission control with flat screens after having grown up on grainy analogue video, crackly audio with lots of beeps, and mission control being choc full of CRTs being watch by men in short sleeve shirts with black ties and cigarettes.
For anyone not understanding the high ISO please have a look at this recent video by minutephysics.
Do you understand ISO?
It took me 21 years...
This video explains how ISO is very different to what most people imagine, and how you can use this knowledge to take less noisy photos.
Fun question: What time was this taken?
The exif includes time, but not time zone. They are not quite at the moon, and Lunar Time is under active development but not official. Also clocks tick slower under the moon's weaker gravity. (Or is it faster?)
Anyway, what time was this taken?
I love the fact that you can see the aurora at both poles!
Why 'spectacular' the quotes
I'm sad not alive at a time like Cowboy Bebop oh well, this is a great pic, overview effect
Comparing the final two images of taken of earth in 1972 and 2026 respectively; does the 2026 (left) image look murkier and less crisp to anyone else?
Surely our camera gear is exponentially better now? Is the reason for the new image being ‘murkier’ due to light, pollution or something else?
here the original NASA photos at high resolution without unnecessary ads.
Why didn't NASA or the news agencies rotate the image so North is up? and slightly to the right. That would make Africa instantly recognizable as that's how maps are imprinted in our brains.
There is no "up" in space, so that wouldn't be editing the image I feel. The camera just happened to be oriented "upside down".
If you are interested in taking similar images, there are several satellites transmitting ‘full disk’ images like this, instead of a camera you need a dish or yagi a sdr and lna. Example satellites are Himawari 8, GOES 18, Fengyun 2H.
"It is the first time since 1972 that humans have travelled outside of the Earth's orbit." But they're not tho (Earth's gravitational dominance extends 4x the distance to the moon)
It really just is a blue marble floating in nothingness.
It really is crazy when you think about it, we're capable of taking a picture of the planet we live on from outer space. We take it for granted, that we know what it all looks like. I often find myself wondering how ancient peoples before us would react to something like this
to quote the old meme:
> hey, i'm in a picture with all my friends!
Man, this is truly awesome. I wonder if NASA's Don Pettit, u/astro_pettit [0] consults on all missions going forward. He really should.
He is "our people," as far as hacking astrophotography from space. [1]
How come the pictures have such bad quality ? Is it a bandwidth issue ? Or there are really constraints that are not so obvious ?
Because fundamentally it is a large object illuminated by sunlight.
> The image, titled Hello, World
A new hello.jpg?
What a gorgeous sight to behold!
This is exactly what I need for printing as 14x10 4x6 photos stitched together!
If you're confused what you're looking at, turn it upside down.
Did they mount my Canon 7D to the outside? :D reminds me of the familiar grain haha
the pale blue dot.
if anything in life gives me pleasure is I have experienced life, with its highs and downs on this little speck.
Once video models get better, hope we can also see some videos.
To paraphrase Carl Sagan: insignificant plant in an insignificant galaxy and there’s a good chance we’ll annihilate ourselves.
It took me a while to orient myself on that picture, until I realized where Spain is... :)
whats different between this and all the other pics of earth from various space devices
I love how all the public critique about not being able to see stars in nasa photos has resulted in better dynamic range photography and composition
just the lowest hanging fruit that had been a second class citizen to the marvel of having an extraterrestrial angle to begin with
truly stunning picture
this ought to put flat-earthers completely down. :)
Hello again dot.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Can't decide if this is "MOEAGARE ARUCHIMISU" moment or a "Transcending Time" moment.
Imagine that all our joys, problems and attachments are within that blue sphere
Can we confirm the cloud patterns match weather data from the same time? Might be a good way to verify.
Does there exist a camera that can zoom into a single person from this distance?
Come on flat-earthers. I know you are out there. Lets hear your crazy rant about how this is a fisheye lens on a weather balloon or a webcam atop the eiffel tower. Why can't we see the poles? And is that an ice wall on poking up in the lower-right quadrant of the disk?
I object to being included in this image without a model release and demand that pixel be removed.
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Faking a trip to the moon does call for some fake imagery, otherwise why even bother?
Anyone find the full res version of this ?
Nasa images page is useless. Government work.
Literally a wasteful distraction from more important things
https://artemis-tracker.netlify.app/