EARTH'S SPACE ORBIT - DEC 29, 2011 (Ungraded): The Milky Way and Storms over Africa. Time lapse from unaltered photos taken by astronauts. HighRes NASA JPEGs muxed into PhotoJPEG video without re-encoding and post-processing. This clip retains 100% of original image quality including camera artifacts. ISS flying in Earth's orbit from over central Africa, near southeast Niger, to the South Indian Ocean, southeast of Madagascar. The complete pass is over southern Africa to the ocean, focusing on the lightning flashes from local storms and the Milky Way rising over the horizon. The Milky Way can be spotted as a hazy band of white light at the beginning of the video. The pass continues southeast toward the Mozambique Channel and Madagascar. The Lovejoy Comet can be seen very faintly near the Milky Way. The pass ends as the sun is rising over the dark ocean. (av21783u)

NASA Johnson Space Center