Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Another cool pic from the Astronomy site.



This amazing ariel view (click on it to get the full effect) shows the rugged snow covered peaks of the Himalayan mountain range in Nepal. The seventh-highest peak on the planet, Dhaulagiri, is the high point on the horizon at the left while in the foreground lies the southern Tibetan Plateau of China.

The thing is, contrary to appearances, this picture wasn't taken from an airliner cruising at 30,000 feet. Instead it was taken with a 35mm camera and telephoto lens by the Expedition 1 crew aboard the International Space Station... orbiting 200 nautical miles above the Earth. Cool eh? I tell ya, that site is a treasure trove.

4 comments:

NotClauswitz said...

Cool! Let's peek in on the Chinese! Where's a link to that website again, I missed it.

FHB said...

"Astronomy Pics", on the left of the page. Speaking of peaking, have you ever played with Google Earth? You can look up all sorts of cool stuff.

Becky said...

Wow. I saw the space station fly over Hawaii last summer. It was pretty cool.

NotClauswitz said...

I've mostly looked at Google Maps, and the one where you can draw a box around some place and identify it with a name or label. Went back to look at places we lived overseas - it looks so different from above. We were in Hawaii (Maui) last summer (August)! May is better, fewer people! :-)