Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy: A Close Neighbor | International Space Station

Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy: A Close Neighbor | International Space Station

NASA Astronaut & Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Pettit: "Large Magellanic Cloud visible in the southern hemisphere with the upper 'red-orange' part of our atmosphere (called the f-region) seen in the lower part of the photograph. This is a time exposure using my homemade tracker that compensates for the International Space Station's motion, thus allowing longish (so far up to 30 seconds) time exposures where the stars [will] not streak."

Nearly 162,000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), is the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies. The LMC is one our nearest galactic neighbors. This dwarf galaxy looms large in Earth's southern nighttime sky at twenty times the apparent diameter of the full Moon.

Also visible here is bright "red-orange" airglow. It occurs when atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, excited by sunlight, emit light to shed their excess energy.

Image details: Nikon Z9, 50mm f1.2 lens, 20 sec, f1.2, ISO 12800, tracker set to 0.064 degrees/sec, with  levels, color, contrast adjusted with Photoshop

Expedition 72 Updates:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 72 Crew
Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)/Astronaut Don Pettit
Release Date: Dec. 13, 2024

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