Star Trails as Seen From Space

By Nancy Atkinson - March 2, 2012 at 2:09 AM UTC | Observing

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Astronaut Don Pettit has just put another wow-factor in astrophotography from the International Space Station, and provided a whole new perspective on a common but eye-catching photography technique of creating star trails. He posted two images on his

Google+ page

, with this description: "Star trails. I leave the shutter open for a long period, and our orbital motion makes the stars streak." Just gorgeous.

See his second stunning image below.

[caption id="attachment_93920" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Star trails, with a module from the International Space Station showing up in black. Credit: Don Pettit/NASA"]

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