NASA astronaut Don Pettit took an eerie photo of the Dragon Freedom capsule during the Crew-9 mission. The crew, the ninth in the SpaceX and NASA collaboration, successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on September 29.
A black-and-white photo taken by Pettit shows the lower part of the Dragon spacecraft with windows fitted with light filters to reduce the brightness of the Sun. Pettit described how he liked the way the sunlight seeps through the seams of the capsule, giving the photo a special charm that looked a little even spooky. The astronaut shared the photo on October 24 on Platform X.
The astronaut used a Nikon Z9 camera with an 8mm fisheye lens to take the photo. He set the exposure to 1/4 second, f/2.8 aperture and ISO 3200 light sensitivity. Additionally, the image was processed in software to optimize contrast, brightness, and conversion to monochrome.
This is the fourth space mission of 69-year-old Don Pettit. He has spent a total of 370 days in orbit, but this time he arrived at the ISS not on Dragon, but on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft during the launch on September 11.
Pettit has long had a passion for astrophotography. He said he had been regularly improving his camera skills since the last mission in 2012-2013. The astronaut added that the new lenses aboard the ISS would allow him to take night photography to the next level.
Earlier we reported on how a veteran astronaut stunned with a photo of London at night from an altitude of 400km.
Provided by Space.com
