The ISS has a live HD video feed, people!

[Katsuro]

This is so freaking cool I can barely contain myself.  The International Space Station has a live HD video feed of the earth:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload

It seems to go offline fairly often so if all you can see is a grey screen then just keep checking back (also the screen goes grey when they switch between the different cameras). Just be patient, because when it's working (and they're not on the night side of the Earth) you can expect to see shit like this, only in motion and LIVE:





If this doesn't give you a science boner then I don't know what will.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Wonderful!

[mellenORL]

That is mesmerizing. I watched for a good while. They switch views from fore, to below, to aft every few minutes, and it all really underscores how fast the ISS travels, and how beautiful the Earth is.

Yay! There's another page, with both the live camera feed, and a tracking graphic to show exactly where the ISS is above the Earth. Geography boner, too!

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

[Katsuro]

The info on the non-hd stream (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream) says it experiences a sunrise/set every 45 minutes, so that's pretty damn fast!

The non-hd feed also sometimes switches to inside the station when the astronauts are on duty ND it also has audio of some of the communications too sometimes.

[Dakota Bob]

See! The Earth IS flat! #TeachTheControversy

[Katsuro]

See! The Earth IS flat! #TeachTheControversy

Yep, they use fish-eye lenses to make it look round.  Sneaky NASA!

[IanC]

URgh, Flash. Trying to not reinstall that plug in. Damnit....

[Old Viking]

I don't want to upset anyone, but the earth appears to be moving.

[Ironchew]

URgh, Flash. Trying to not reinstall that plug in. Damnit....

I use the Livestreamer script to pipe ustream and other streaming services directly to another media player. No Flash required.

[Cerim Treascair]

This makes my geeky little heart sing!

[Barbarella]

Now THIS is cool! I'm overlooking the silliness in the other "ISS/Ruskies Acting Suckskies" but THAT IS COOL!

Hey. You know, I wonder what outer space really looks like. Yes, we have those awesome Hubble photos but I read somewhere that it's actually colorized. This makes me wonder. Is there color in space? What does that space stuff look like color-wise? If I went up close to a nebula & looked at it with my naked eyes (and had a super-human constitution & didn't die) what would I see?

Any of you guys remember when The Hubble was considered a "White Elephant/Joke" & ragged by movies like The Naked Gun 2? Boy, if we knew then what we knew, now.....

[Ironchew]

This makes me wonder. Is there color in space? What does that space stuff look like color-wise?

Yes, there is color in space. You might have trouble seeing a lot of the far-away objects in detail because they're so dim and the human eye has trouble perceiving dim colors. Pictures like the Hubble deep field were taken with very long exposures in order to collect enough light to make an image we would recognize.

If I went up close to a nebula & looked at it with my naked eyes (and had a super-human constitution & didn't die) what would I see?

My guess, if you were close to a nebula or inside of one, is that you would see an enormous amount of light from the excited gases around the remnant. Star systems near nebulae must enjoy a beautiful night sky (if all life hadn't been scoured by intense radiation from the supernova beforehand.)