How ISS Astronauts Take Unbelievable Images Of Lightning From House

To attempt to seize a thunderstorm picture once more, Mogensen will use a digicam on the area station, which seems to be out of a rounded window known as a cupola. However quite than utilizing solely the usual digicam, a further digicam with particular qualities is added.

The Davis digicam is an occasion digicam that mechanically responds when there’s a vital change in brightness. As an alternative of pushing a button to take a picture and capturing no matter is going on at that second, the Davis digicam responds when one thing adjustments in its view — on this case, hopefully catching the occasions of a thunderstorm in motion.

“We’re excited to have Andreas Mogensen search for thunderstorms with the brand new occasion digicam. Final time, he captured a blue jet, so we hope for much more footage over his six-month keep. This would be the first time an occasion digicam is used to look at lightning occasions by an astronaut,” stated DTU House senior researcher Olivier Chanrion.

The Davis digicam can reply extraordinarily quick, accumulating knowledge equal to 100,000 pictures per second. That ought to allow it to seize the very brief discharges of lightning that happen between the clouds however do not attain Earth. These occasions, known as transient luminous occasions (TLEs), embody blue jets of lightning capturing up from clouds and into area and flashes of crimson gentle known as sprites.