5.07.2024

"I'm learning as I go up here."

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captures himself moving through the International Space Station in a photo posted June 28, 2024. (Image credit: Matthew Dominick/NASA/X)

The space station is always in motion, but only rarely does orbital photography bring that movement to our screens on Earth.

International Space Station (ISS) astronaut Matthew Dominick has an ongoing series of photos on social media showing life on the move in space. The NASAastronaut, in his limited spare time between Expedition 71 duties, regularly transmits timelapse photos from the orbiting laboratory.

"Zooming through the lab on ISS," Dominick recently posted on X, formerly Twitter, with an epic selfie showing himself moving through the U.S. Destiny module. He also takes images looking out the windows of the ISS, while "experimenting with long exposures," he says. For photography buffs, he even includes ISOs and exposure times.

Two recent photo stacks showed star trails surrounding the solar panels of the ISS. "In the last of five 30-second exposures, the sun cracked the horizon, creating the brilliant blue on the service module solar arrays," Dominick wrote on X. "5 stacked images, 24mm, f4, ISO 800."

The International Space Station with the glow of Earth below, in a timelapse photo stack. Above are star streaks. The photo series was posted by NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick on June 25, 2024. (Image credit: Matthew Dominick/NASA/X)

"Lots of test shots are taken trying to find the best part of the orbit for lighting and angles to create images like the one above," Dominick added in another post. "Some of the test shots turn out interesting. In this one, the solar array moved during the shot."

A ghostly view of an International Space Station solar panel moving above Earth, in a timelapse photo posted June 25, 2024 by NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick. (Image credit: Matthew Dominick/NASA/X)

Another of the photo series shows what Earth looks like with different exposure times. "There are guidelines for shooting astrophotography from earth but what happens when shooting at orbital speeds? Thread shows images with 6400 ISO, f1.4, and exposures ranging from 10s to 1/4s," Dominick wrote on X.