question purely out of curiousity

Rubecula

People in space have always taken photographs looking back at Earth. Do any of them ever take a picture in the opposite direction? ie of the star fields?

Surely without atmosphere to block a lot of the view it must be spectacular up there? I can not remember seeing anything of that. Even the moon landings that show Earth had a plain black sky as far as I can remember. (Probably due to the light being bright enough to block out the surroundings I suppose)

Anyway it is purely out of curiosity I ask.

shedweller

Star exposures are almost the same (iirc) in space as they are here on earth. So from an orbiting ISS they are constantly moving and unless you have a mount to compensate for the ISS movement, you are either going to have underexposed stars or streaked stars across the picture. Don Petit took some amazing photos while he was on the ISS.
Here's one of him with his gear:

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/06/25/astronaut-don-pettit-floating-with-his-huge-camera-collection-on-the-iss/

And a link to some of his pics:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/06/astronaut_don_pettit_s_photos_of_earth_from_the_international_space_station_.html

hal9000

I think I know where half the price of the ISS comes from now, thats alot of expensive cameras and lenses! :pac: