Lovingly compiled by Dave MacLean of the Centre of Geographic Sciences in Nova Scotia, this fabulous collection pulls together images tweeted by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), showing off what must surely be the crème de la crème of aerial photography.
McLean’s interactive map makes it easy to check out the 650 or so photos taken by four astronauts during the current Expedition 40, with all pictures color coded so you know precisely who took what. New ones are being added as they hit Twitter.
Related: Astronaut Chris Hadfield tweets stunning photos of Earth from ISS
Simply click on a pin to bring up a thumbnail of the shot, click again to go to the tweet showing the embedded image, and click one more time for an even bigger view.
To grab the shots, astronauts have been using the space station’s two Nikon DSLR cameras – an aging D2X and a slightly more recent D3S shooter – with a range of lenses topping out at 400mm.
It’s great work by MacLean, and as a bonus the map even shows the current location of the ISS, so if it’s close by, pop your head out the window and say “cheese.”
By the way, did you know it’s easy to see the ISS as it passes overhead, 200 miles up? Simply sign up at this NASA webpage, enter your ZIP code, and you’ll receive an email notification whenever it’s in your neighborhood, so to speak.
