Don Pettit’s Staggering Photo Confounds Skeptics

Space
Matt Growcoot
1
The International Space Station orbits above Earth at night, with city lights visible below and the Milky Way galaxy above.
The Milky Way Galaxy glows above Earth with ISS components in the foreground. | Don Pettit / NASA

Astronaut Don Pettit takes photos so good that people have a hard time believing they are real. Case in point, a stunning image of the Milky Way Galaxy as the Earth zooms below Pettit’s International Space Station vantage point.

Describing it as one of his favorites from a head-spinning batch of 1.2 million RAW images taken during his latest trip to space, Pettit explains that the photo of the Milky Way was taken from the ISS’s Cupola, a viewing module on the ISS, using a Nikon Z9, an Arri Zeiss 15mm lens, and a “custom sidereal drive that cancelled out star motion relative to our orbit.”

While most were impressed, some X users simply didn’t believe Pettit took the photo. “I just have such a hard time believing this is real considering every other ‘image’ and livestream from space has nothing but black void,” writes verified X user Scott Sennett. “No stars. Nothing. And then this is lit up like a generic space PC background wallpaper… Highly questionable.”

Pettit followed up his photos the next day with a behind-the-scenes post. “Many have asked how this photo was made,” Pettit wrote.

A mechanical gear assembly mounted inside a spacecraft window, with a camera lens visible below and the Earth's horizon in the background.
The custom-built sidereal tracker that Pettit used to take the photo.

He explains that as the International Space Station (ISS) orbits Earth, it rotates its pitch axis to keep its nadir view constant. Similar to how long exposure photographs are made here on Earth, it means that the stars are turned into long lines when keeping the shutter open.

However, the Cupola’s custom-built sidereal camera mount rotates every 90 minutes using a 60 to 90-toothed gear. It was built by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and it cancels out the orbital motion of the ISS and allows distant stars to be captured as fixed points.

“In essence, it is a rotational coil spring-powered analog star tracker,” Pettit explains. “It was machined out of aluminum and is entirely mechanical to bypass NASA’s strict electrical requirements for cargo. We had to get creative!”

Pettit notes that after Expedition 72, his most recent space mission, the sidereal mount was returned to RIT, where it is now displayed for people to see for themselves.

“Photography is an important part of sharing the journey to new frontiers for all people of Earth,” Pettit adds.

Image creditsDon Pettit / NASA

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