Space
Night sky and Earth: 2 Live Cameras — Ishigaki and the ISS
Two cameras on the night. One looks up at the southern sky beside an observatory dome on Ishigaki; the other looks down at Earth from 400 km up.
What you can see
Ishigakijima Observatory streams the night sky as it is, from near the top of Mount Maezato at 230 m. The camera stands beside the dome that houses the 105 cm Murikabushi telescope.
What sets this island apart is its latitude. At 24 degrees north, the Southern Cross — hidden below the horizon from Honshu — climbs into the low southern sky late at night from about December to June. In summer the inner Milky Way passes overhead. This is a test feed and may end without notice.
The International Space Station is NASA's official feed, an external camera holding Earth in frame. It circles the planet in about 90 minutes, so day and night change over roughly every 45 minutes. It is not dark because it is night, as on the ground: wait 45 minutes and it is light.
The two are here together because they face opposite ways. One looks from the ground at space, the other from space at the ground.
Cameras you can watch now: 2
All 2 are live video. Tap one to open it in the camera list.
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Ishigakijima Observatory night-sky camera
Ishigaki, Okinawa · Space · Nature
Streamed from beside the dome of the 105 cm Murikabushi telescope, near the summit of Mt. Maezu at 230 m. At latitude 24°N the Southern Cross clears the southern horizon on winter and spring nights, which it never does from mainland Japan; in summer the bright core of the Milky Way passes overhead. The feed is still a trial and may stop without notice.
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Earth from the International Space Station
about 400 km up · Space
The official feed from the external cameras. The station circles the Earth in roughly 90 minutes, so day and night swap about every 45 minutes. The sky artwork on the card is for ground cameras and does not apply here.
When to watch
Ishigaki works only on a clear night. Under cloud the screen stays black. It runs on Japan time, so there is no time difference to read: late night there is late night here.
The Southern Cross climbs into the low southern sky late at night from about December to June. In summer the inner Milky Way passes overhead.
The space station you can open at any hour. It goes round in 90 minutes, so if it is dark, 45 minutes brings it into daylight. A camera with an upper bound on the wait is a rare thing.
The feed itself can switch, though. While the external camera is down you get other footage or a still frame.
If it isn't showing
The sources are the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, for Ishigakijima Observatory, and NASA. NAOJ's terms allow us to present the feed where credit is shown, and NASA's video is a work of the US government. The sample images are the feeds' own title cards; the live picture differs each time.
The Ishigaki feed is in test operation and may end without notice. How to tell why a screen is blank is in What is happening when a live camera shows nothing.
As cameras that show only the night sky, the two under Aurora are the closest; there, local midnight falls in the Japanese evening. Both cameras here also appear in Space. How the hour you open decides what you get is in Which cameras are in daylight now.
Agencies publishing the cameras on this page
- NASA (U.S. government work) — Official site
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ terms for reuse) — Official site
The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.