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[ Music ]

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>> I've taught astronomy to Boy
Scouts for most of my adult life

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and know the summer stars,
in particular, like the back

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of my hand and I've
sought out --

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I've lived in the Mojave
Desert for eight years.

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And I would go away from the
lights there, even as meager

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as they might be, to lay on
top of a car and just swim,

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you know, in the universe.

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So I've always loved the
night sky and the stars and so

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on my very first shuttle flight,

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both my shuttle flights,
we took some time.

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I convinced my crew to turn off
all the light in the cockpit,

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let our eyes dark-adapt,

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and just sit there
perched in the windows.

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All of us were in different
windows and you could see --

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I mean, the Milky
Way is just stunning.

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[ Music ]

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Of course, the lights
don't flicker.

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They're steady because they're
not coming through the dust

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and coming through
the atmosphere.

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As you really adjust, you start
to sense the very subtle colors

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that are in the stars, a little
bit of reddish, a little bit

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of bluish, blue-white
and that was, you know,

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really neat for me to see.

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The space shuttle was
incredibly busy though,

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and you don't get much time
to look out the windows.

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It was having the downtime.

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So you work really hard.

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I mean, Monday through Friday
was a blur, working late,

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you're living at work.

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There is always more to do

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and then weekends
it slows down some.

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There is some work.

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You work out, have a video
conference with the family,

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but you do have some
time for some projects

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and for looking out the windows.

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And I really got into low-light
photography in particular.

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The cupola was fairly new.

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We had some fairly new
cameras, the D3 that was good

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at capturing low-light imagery.

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I was up there during the
last space shuttle mission.

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So it's just 135.

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Atlantis was docked
to the space station.

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And I grabbed Sandy Magnus,
a good friend of mine,

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and she was on that
crew and she had lived

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on the space station
a few years before

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but the cupola was new
since she was there.

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All they had was single windows
that looked straight down

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and there you're just
watching the earth go

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by at five miles a second.

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You haven't looked
out the cupola yet.

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Come on. Come with me.

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I've got so much to do.

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No, Sandy.

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You have got to see this.

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So we went in there and
cranked the shutters open

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and we were flying into
this astonishing aurora,

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aurora australis,
southern lights.

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This rippling, pulsing, river
of green that's down below us,

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the red that is stretching up to
our altitude, it's like [noise].

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It was just breathtaking.

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And I had not practiced any
low-light photography up to

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that point, but I knew right
then that I had to figure

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out how to capture this and
so I started working on that.

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I called the photography experts
on the ground and said okay,

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what are the settings I use
to get started with this?

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And part of it was experimental.

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I had to get close
and then start trying.

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I got some pictures
actually of Atlantis docked

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to the space station in
the night with a little bit

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of the green aurora
off to the side.

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And then I got a picture
of Atlantis' plasma trail

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as it came in over the Yucatan
heading toward its landing

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in Florida and it's
just fascinating.

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The more you look, the
more you start to see.

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You see the stars like you
have never seen them before.