My Little Town Seen At Night From The ISS In Space!

Night picture from the ISS over the Midwest looking east - I live inside the blue circle

(click pic to enlarge)

 I saw this pic taken from the International Space Station posted on the Aviation Heritage Press facebook page last night and noticed right away that it was a great nighttime view of Chicago and much of the Midwest. Then I thought, hey, I live in the Midwest!... so I got to looking a little closer and after identifying several larger cities, I found South Bend and Elkhart (pretty much side by side), and then found Fort Wayne.

 Then, seeing the smaller city of Plymouth straight south of South Bend (on a line heading toward the big city of Indianapolis), I then drew an imaginary line between Plymouth and Fort Wayne which represents US Highway 30 (running kinda east-south-east) and there it was! My little town of Warsaw Indiana! It's only about 15,000 people, so I was pretty surprised that it was that easy to see from low Earth orbit. I thought this was cool enough to do a quick screen capture and then I put the circle around Warsaw and posted it on twitpic. I really didn't think anyone would care but it got quit a few views and I got several comments on twitter about it.

 So tonight I decided to see if I could replicate the view in Google Earth. Below is what I came up with to help you better see what the nighttime pic is showing. It's pretty accurate, tho I might be off just a tad. The tilted view is from 259 miles up, and it looks like the ISS runs 173 to 286 miles in altitude, so I may be pretty close to the actual altitude that the pic was taken from. Cool stuff! Possibly the coolest part from the actual pic above is the blue edge line that shows where day is turning into night. It's called the 'terminator', and it's just really beautiful. (click here to see both pix stacked for comparison)

(click pic to enlarge)     Google Earth image of the same view from 259 miles up

 One last thing that makes all this very interesting... the image is actually one of many that's part of a new book coming out this Fall from the Aviation Heritage Press. It's called Lights Of Mankind: The Earth At Night As Seen From Space and you can pre-order it at Amazon. Here's the book description: 'Lights of Mankind' is the story of how we’ve populated this planet as told through inspiring, panoramic photographs of Earth at night. It showcases unexpected and breathtaking photos made possible by the latest light-sensitive cameras and the newly installed Cupola on the International Space Station—pictures that have already awed hundreds of thousands Space Station fans. 

 The book looks pretty interesting to me. I'll see if I can get a copy and review it soon to give you a better idea of what it's all about. From what I see of it so far, I'm inclined to say it's out of this world : )

Comments

[August 2016 Printable Calendar]

love reading about space.