This picture was taken with a camera worth $150 (By NASA)

On May 29, looking southward from a vantage point about 350 kilometers above the southern Indian Ocean, astronauts onboard the International Space Station watched this enormous, green ribbon shimmering below. Known as aurora-australis or southern lights, the shifting, luminous bands are commonly seen at high northern latitudes as well, there known as the aurora borealis or northern lights.


What's more impressive was that the shot was taken using a cheapo 7 Mega Pixel camera used by one of the crew.

The Transcendent City

Richard Hardy, a recent graduate from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, produced this eye-popping video—exploring an all-encompassing machine-forest populated with mechanical flowers and fluttering urban biotechnologies, with architectural sponges perched high atop masts—for Nic Clear's Unit 15.

THE TRANSCENDENT CITY from Richard Hardy on Vimeo.

Richard writes:

The Transcendent City is an autonomous artificial machine that extends across the earth adapting to the natural eco-systems it encounters while deriving its energy from the renewable resources available at each particular site. The systems desire is to maintain homeostasis within itself whilst maintaining homeostasis within the greater system, Gaia. Its processes are engineered on the molecular scale by nano technologies controlled by molecular computers that monitor and analyse the environment.

All images courtesy of Richard's Flickr account.

Summer Fireflies

Click image for full size

"I was spending the Fourth of July back in Nebraska, in the farmhouse where I grew up, and there were more fireflies that summer than I'd ever seen. I went out to the dirt road behind the house and shot this using a long exposure, just after sunset."—Rachel Blaser 

Image courtesy of the International Photography Contest 2009.

Everest, As it Happens.

'As It Happens' is a short film featuring two mountaineers who decide to document their journey through the Himalayas on the go; uploading their experiences independently via satellite. 

Equipped with an array of pricey gear; their film proposes a more authentic and accurate description of events rather than something stitched together in a clean editing studio months later. 

Results are as follows!

Runtime: 16:27

As It Happens from renan ozturk on Vimeo.