Today we went to a talk by astronaut Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid). Throughout the summer NASA organizes talks from cool speakers; from scientists and engineers working on interesting projects, to astronauts. Wiseman was on the ISS from May 2014 through November 2014 (Expedition 40/41), and was a Navy test pilot prior to becoming an astronaut. 

His talk was focused on the beauty of earth from space, during his time on the ISS he was able to take some fantastic aerial photography (is it even aerial photography if you’re in the vacuum of space, I suppose there is air in the space station…). All the astronauts are trained in advanced photography techniques before they fly and the ISS contains some very high-end camera equipment. This results in a large quantity of amazing photographs from a very unique perspective. 

The talk was great and I was pretty motivated to get straight back in the lab to work my way towards space, but you could tell some of his photos were faked, for example this one of London is clearly photoshopped to remove all of the the clouds!

https://www.twitter.com/astro_reid/status/529625794709319680/photo/1