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MG5thAve t1_iy8k4qw wrote

You see what people like William Shatner say about “total, ominous blackness” when they have the chance to peek out of the atmosphere. Not a single star to be seen. Why is that? It definitely instills a feeling of dread.

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dangerbird2 t1_iy8lovr wrote

IRL you'd be able to see the stars. They just don't show up on a normal camera exposure

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RG_Viza t1_iy9caf6 wrote

Inverse square law of brightness. In order to expose for the earth and moon, the stars get lost at the bottom of the dynamic range capability of the medium. Brightness of light decreases as an inverse square of the distance traveled.

When you think about how far starlight has traveled…

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MG5thAve t1_iy8m1by wrote

I was thinking something like this as well - though, I’m also a photographer. Any star would just need to be as bright as the earth here to show up in the image. But, to your point, I guess they’re all too far away to emit as much brightness. I’d like to see what an HDR image looks like from this angle!

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JaggedMetalOs t1_iyavcaf wrote

You'd probably need to shield your eyes from anything bright as well to allow your eyes to dark adapt.

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iheartDISCGOLF t1_iy8lu5h wrote

It's an exposure thing. Because the spacecraft, the moon and earth are so bright compared to its "surroundings" the small sources of light in the background essentially disappear.

It's similar to how a bright light can ruin your night vision temporary when driving. Or how after your eyes adjust to the dark you can see way more than right after you turned the lights out.

I'm not sure what photography equipment they used onboard. I'm sure it's all custom.. However, it's purely an artifact of the equipment and the post processing of the image. A photography trick that would get better results with all the stars and such in the background would be a method called HDR (High dynamic range). This more closely captures what the human eye sees

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bombmk t1_iy9f76y wrote

Camera is a GoPro board, custom optics and packaging, afaik.

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belugwhal t1_iy8lzh3 wrote

It's actually the opposite. You're figuratively blinded by stars when you leave the atmosphere. It's the camera exposure.

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MG5thAve t1_iy8m8p7 wrote

That’s interesting! It must be a spectacular sight. Do you have any experience in this regard, or know somebody that has been out in space?

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bombmk t1_iya48ee wrote

This is what it looks like when you are just out of the air and light pollution here from earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PGP5zdNJNA

Get outside of the atmosphere and it will be even crazier.

And if you then add that what we can see with the naked eye is only a small fraction of the galaxy...

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UrbanGhost114 t1_iy9vxuo wrote

Light pollution, and how camera sensors work, and how exposure on cameras work.

Its gets very technical if you want to dive into it, but that's why.

He didn't really get that far out of the atmosphere for enough of the "light pollution" from earth, the moon, and the sun itself to no longer have an effect - this is the same effect but multiplied with cameras.

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