Astronaut Uses Moonlight and Off-Camera Flash for Awesome ISS Portrait

Astronaut Matthew Dominick — who is currently onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and is a keen photographer — has revealed how he captured a unique self-portrait peering out of the SpaceX Dragon with the Milky Way behind him.

The beautiful shot was technically challenging to pull off and had to be timed perfectly so there was just enough light from the Moon to illuminate Dragon but still dark enough so that the Milky Way Galaxy would sparkle in the background.

And as if that was not enough, to capture an astronaut peering out, the light inside Dragon had to be delicately balanced. Fortunately, Dominick posted an explainer video about how he nailed the unique shot.

“I was thinking to myself one day when I was looking at the Earth and the Moon data, it would be really cool to take a picture from right there [the Boeing starliner] looking up at Dragon with the Milky Way behind it and a person sitting in the Dragon window,” Dominick explains in the video posted to X (formerly Twitter).

“I’ve noticed that the Sun would set and maybe 12 to 15 minutes later, the Moon would rise on the horizon. I thought maybe that the Moon rising would provide just enough light to illuminate Dragon but not too much so that you can’t see the stars.”

But to capture a person inside the Dragon capsule, Dominick had to set up the lighting just right to match the exposure on the outside. This proved difficult because even on its lowest setting, the light Dominick uses is still too bright. So like all good photographers, he improvised and put a washcloth over the light to diffuse it further.

“When it’s super dark outside, even the littlest amount of light coming from inside will overexpose the person’s face against a deep star background,” he adds.

Once the lighting rig was set up, Dominick went down to Starliner where the camera — a Nikon Z9 — is to set the shot up. Using a one-second exposure, f/1.4, and 6400 ISO, he set the camera to take a photo every two seconds and then “scoots out of there” back to Dragon to pose for the photo.

Once back in the Dragon capsule, he has to hold “real still” because of the one-second exposure, or else he will be blurry and out of focus.

“It took a lot of pictures to get this right but luckily we did the entire Dragon crew, so all four of us on the Dragon crew have our own portraits taken from inside Dragon,” Dominick says.

Since arriving on the ISS in March, Dominick has been taking beautiful and creative photos and helpfully sharing his techniques and settings.

Today, he will host the first X Space from space along with fellow astronaut and photography enthusiast Don Pettit at 4.05 p.m. Eastern Time.

Image credits: Photographs by NASA/Matthew Dominick.