A gorgeous image entrance by a recent reaching at the International Space Station ( ISS ) prove the nighttime lights of London gleaming 250 international nautical mile below .

NASA spaceman Don Pettit — NASA ’s oldest alive spaceman at 69 — arrived at the place last week on his 4th trip to orb .

“ London spark at night , ” Pettit write in a post with the photo , which he share on X ( formerly Twitter ) on Wednesday .

London sparkling at night .

Nikon Z9 , 200 mm f2 , 1/320 sec , ISO 25600pic.twitter.com/okPZz6N05f

& mdash ; Don Pettit ( @astro_Pettit)September 18 , 2024

Pettit used a full - chassis Nikon Z9 to take the photo . The focal length was 200 mm , the aperture f2 , rush 1/320 sec , and ISO 25600 .

Just a few days after get at the ISS , Pettittook an extraordinary photoshowing the Polaris Dawn spacecraft entering Earth ’s air at mellow pep pill as it devolve home with four astronauts at the end ofa historic five - daytime charge .

The American astronaut captivate similarly strike shots during his previous visits to the ISS , and so his social media follower can expect to see plenty more wonderful photos over the course of his six - month blank mission .

Pettit is particularly practiced at capture dramatic star trail images , like this one taken in 2012 with a Nikon D3s and a 24 millimeter genus Lens and produce using multiple stacked 30 - moment exposures :

maven lead from@Space_Station , with ghostly blue outline of a solar board .

Multiple atmospherical layers are seeable due to solar driven irritation of atomic oxygen ( green ) and hydroxyl ( -OH ) root ( orange - garden pink ) . The virtuoso trails become curved near the horizon due to the…pic.twitter.com/F9HUVcEf9e

& mdash ; Don Pettit ( @astro_Pettit)July 19 , 2024

He also likes to take near - infrared range , like this one beguile in 2012 showing a flora - packed river delta ( evince in bright Battle of Magenta ) wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains . This prototype was taken using a change Nikon D3s with a 180 mm electron lens set at f/4.5 and ISO 400 .

Camana , Peru neighborhood in near infrared . lodge between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains , this lush flora - packed river delta appears as bright Battle of Magenta . Camana is the grayish feature of speech in the lower center of the river delta . This is in stark contrast to the thin foliage in…pic.twitter.com/zXu6Gor1MF

& mdash ; Don Pettit ( @astro_Pettit)September 1 , 2024

While most astronauts are glad to simply peer out of the ISS at the arresting scene several hundred miles below , a few , such as Pettit , Matthew Dominick , andThomas Pesquet , like to put down what they see with a camera . And we ’re right glad they do .