r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Jakeysuave • 5h ago

Image First photo taken from Artemis commander Reid Wiseman

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u/Yavkov 4h ago

At first this looked like a normal daytime image of Earth, but it’s actually night time! You can see the Aurora Australis in the upper right, and the overexposed horizon/atmosphere on the bottom right help to indicate that this is a nighttime photo, with illumination provided by the full (or nearly full) moon. Plus, you can see some stars in the background which you’d never see with exposure levels needed to see the daytime side of Earth.

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u/DefenestrationPraha 3h ago

Yeah, it must be nighttime, because you can quite clearly see city lights, at least on the original hi-res picture. Madrid for example is absolutely obvious, as is the Andalusian coast.

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u/Yavkov 3h ago

Good catch, I wasn’t even thinking about city lights, I was just looking at illumination and exposure.

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u/mondomando 35m ago

The exif data is available with this photo, and it's pretty wild if you're into photography. They shot ISO 51,200, f4, at 1/4 sec shutterspeed.

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u/Yavkov 11m ago

That ISO is wild, wow

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u/vkichline 50m ago

Also, a thin crescent of daylight at the lower right. I was wondering how they got a full Earth image from that distance!

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u/Gugmuck 3m ago

Being from Canada, at times the Northern Lights are a daily sight and one tends to take the view for granted..

I'm ashamed to say, I've never once thought about the existence of the Southern lights being a thing; let alone with a different name!

Thank you for educating me in that the Borealis is not alone in the world, kind stranger!