andsoitisArtemis II crew take 'spectacular' image of Earth
I was confused when I first saw this photo, as I don't think I've ever before seen a nightside, moonlit Earth, exposed so that it looks like the dayside at a first glance. I wonder how many casual viewers actually realize it's the night side. A nice demonstration of how moonlight is pretty much exactly like sunlight, just much much dimmer. In particular it has the same color, even though moonlight is often thought of as bluish and sunlight as yellowish!
It explains why the image is so grainy. At first I was confused what that stripe to the left and the bottom was. But it’s just the window edge, and the noise isn’t stars.
(To be clear, the bright dots are stars [except the brightest one, in the lower right, is Venus I think], which makes this photo also a great demonstration that of course you can capture stars in space, you just have to expose properly!)
How do you know that they're stars? I believe they probably are stars as well (by visual comparison with a star chart, suitably rotated), but I've found no source for either claim.
I did find multiple sources, including TFA, for the brightest being Venus.
Who said you can't capture stars in space? What do you think the purpose of Hubble, JWST, etc are? There's also plenty of imagery taken from ISS that clearly show stars. I've definitely seen Orion in some of that imagery and it put a different perspective on the size of the constellations when seen from that angle.
Photos from the moon landings don't have stars in them, because they are exposed for full daylight on the moon.
I’m talking about the grainy noise over all the black parts (actually over the Earth disk as well), including beyond the window edge. The window edge itself looks like a denser and brighter stripe of stars.
Zoom into this higher-resolution version: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019...
It’s a remarkable photo. You can see the aurora Australis at the top right of the image (it’s upside down, if there is such a thing - that’s the straits of Gibraltar at the lower left, and the Sahara above it - and the skein of atmosphere wrapping the entire planet. Those look like noctilucent clouds in the north, or possibly more aurora.
I've done several shoots lit only by the full moon. Doing long exposure, the images are as you stated not much different than an image taken during the day, except for looking at the sky and seeing stars.
I've also done video shoots with the newer mirrorless cameras and fast lenses shooting wide open again lit with nothing but the full moon. It again looks daylight on the image. As a bit of BTS, I recorded a video of the screen on the camera showing what it was seeing, and then pulled away and reframed to show essentially the same shot as the camera but it's just solid black. One of those videos was fun as we caught a bit of lens flaring from the moon, and you can actually see the details of the surface of the moon in the reflection. It was one of those things I just never considered before as flares coming from lights or the sun are just void of detail.
Moonlight is reflected sunlight.