NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in March as SpaceX Crew-8 mission commander.
During his time aboard the Orbital Base, Dominick has shared some wonderful images both inside and outside the ISS.
Avid photographers will be pleased to know that the astronaut also shares the camera settings he used for each of the shots. The recent one is a real beauty and shows the moon above the Earth just before sunrise.
1/ A sliver of the moon emerges from the nocturnal glowing clouds and seems to be looking toward the horizon, waiting for the approaching sunrise.
1/250s, f5.6, ISO 6400, 170mm (50-500mm lens), cropped pic.twitter.com/6vq9NfdXx0
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) July 6, 2024
This creative image from inside the ISS module shows Dominick using a flash for a “light painting” experiment.
Happy 4th of July!
No fireworks on the ISS so we used camera flashes instead. Today they experimented with “painting with light”.
15 sec, f22, 24mm, ISO 500. Lights out. Manually controlled custom flashes. Ambient light from computers and experimental LEDs only.
1/ Sailing through pic.twitter.com/fe8arQh3aJ
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) July 4, 2024
In this set of images, Dominick shows how different shutter speeds can affect how the Earth appears in an image.
A common topic of questions when publishing night images from the ISS is exposure time. There are guidelines for taking astrophotos from Earth, but what happens when shooting at orbital speeds? Thread shows images at 6400 ISO, f1.4 and exposures ranging from 10s to 1/4s pic.twitter.com/3YNwTeoOX7
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) July 1, 2024
Here is an amazing nighttime image from the ISS that shows the Nile River flowing into the Mediterranean Sea.
Flight down the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea.
1/5s, f1.4, ISO 12800
Later, the dark image needs to be subtracted and further processed. It was amazing to see on such a clear night. pic.twitter.com/fMucJdfw74
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 30, 2024
This one shows an astronaut peering out of a window on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docked at the ISS. Dominick also experimented with time-lapses, which you can check out below.
A short timelapse of individual shots taken while searching for the right light for the shot above. The dragon illuminates the faint blue light of the moon, which is just beginning to rise on the horizon in front of the ISS. pic.twitter.com/QeTJwYSAb3
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 29, 2024
Here, Dominick places the camera on a monopod and uses a slow 1/5 shutter speed to create a sense of movement in an image taken from one of the station’s many modules.
Magnifying glass over the laboratory on the ISS. pic.twitter.com/6jzajAyy1E
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 28, 2024
This image shows part of the ISS with a dramatic background of star trails.
Experimenting with long exposures to capture star trails with the beautiful ISS structures. In the last of five 30-second exposures, the sun cracked the horizon, creating a brilliant blue on the service modules’ solar arrays. 5 stacked images, 24mm, f4, ISO 800. pic.twitter.com/eyX92X2CoY
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 25, 2024
Finally, check out this gorgeous time-lapse shot showing the docked Starliner spacecraft with the aurora borealis in the distance.
Time-lapse video of the aurora streaming behind the Starliner taken from the Dragon window with Butch and Suni in the Starliner window. Their flashlights illuminate the cabin.
0.5 second interval, f 1.4, 6400 ISO, 1/4 second exposure, 24mm lens. pic.twitter.com/gZuxYZu0Af
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 16, 2024
Another former ISS resident has also earned a reputation for taking breathtaking photographs. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet usually turned his lens towards Earth 250 miles below and captured beautiful images that perfectly encapsulated the beauty of our planet.