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crew earth observations have long been

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the way the astronauts get to see our

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planet and we've benefited from the

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photographs they've been able to share

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with us but taking a photo while

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traveling 17

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500 miles an hour can be a little tricky

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nasa commentator lori meigs is at the

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payload operations integration center in

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huntsville alabama to show us one of the

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tools that helps astronauts take those

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photos allowing students scientists and

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earth day is approaching it's a time

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when many of us take the day to

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appreciate our beautiful planet and

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learn how to protect it well astronauts

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on the space station get to take in that

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beauty every day from the unique vantage

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point of space and lucky for us they

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share that through photos i spoke with

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dan barstow the principal investigator

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for windows on earth which is a tool

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that gives them a little help in

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snapping the best shots

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windows on earth helps the astronauts do

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earth observation and photography the

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astronauts take amazing pictures of

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earth i don't know if you've ever seen

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any of them

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but they are just gorgeous they show

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the sahara the nile river the

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beijing at night the aurora they're just

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so compelling and engaging

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our software helps them identify the

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targets to photograph and disseminates

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them to the public the astronauts enjoy

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taking pictures you can just imagine

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them looking out the window

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seeing the day and night and all the

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different things that they see

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some of the pictures they take are just

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because it's fun they like to see it and

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they you know great pictures but when

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they have scientific targets it's often

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hard to identify

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exactly the object that they're looking

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for so our software helps them by

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simulating a view out the window so they

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know exactly what they're looking at and

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can there it is click take the picture

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so for the astronauts perspective they

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actually helped we work directly with

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the astronauts in designing this

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software so it's really a tool more for

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them than it is for us so they certainly

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appreciate getting this kind of extra

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visual yeah because i would think going

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17 000 miles an hour not a lot of time

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to really think and look and

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you've really got to be quick with it

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yeah just imagine you're flying over

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you want to get boston you have about 30

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seconds

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for the that boston goes by in the

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window that you have to

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identify it

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frame it compose it take the picture and

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then get ready for the next one it takes

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a lot of fast response so talk about

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some of the fascinating photographs

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you've gotten back because of that

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software

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anything that sticks out yeah we

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every day

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in collaboration with nasa they download

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the images then we process them and post

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them on our public website which is the

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others part of this project called

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windowsonearth.org

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free public website we have over 500 000

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images in there wow so every day we're

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processing and i'm looking at these

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pictures it's just it comes from the

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heart they are so beautiful

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the auroras are always amazing to see on

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the horizon the green and the shimmering

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i love seeing the bahamas i mean some of

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the things that the astronauts really

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enjoy taking a lot are the the blues and

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the aquas of the bahama islands or

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the flying over cairo and you see the

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nile river just this

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verdant green wavy line in the middle of

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the barren desert

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so they go to your website you can

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search it search for a particular place

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you're looking for yes you can search

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for any site you get to see the all the

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photographs taken any day they're posted

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you can look through them all you can

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pick favorites you can look for types of

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features like a volcano or a hurricane

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or locations

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why is it so important

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to get these photographs from space

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we live on a wonderful planet planet

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earth

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is this oasis in space

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the astronauts

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understand our planet as a whole planet

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there's an integrated system all the

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pieces working together because they

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they're able to be away from it take

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their 92 minutes as they're going around

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the earth seeing the earth from this

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sort of global

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perspective the photographs

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enable the public to experience the same

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thing

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that kind of

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stepping back and seeing things more