Warm Regards

If Matisse and Van Gogh worked together to make a portrait of the Expedition 31 crew, this is what it might look like: Left to right in the first image are Joe Acaba, Gennady Padalka, Oleg Kononenko, Sergey Revin, and André Kuipers (I was running the camera).

The thermal camera I used operates in the far infrared, with wavelengths around 10 microns, which is close to body temperature. I was using it to image the window heater in the Cupola, and played around with it a bit before putting it away. Note that regular glass is not transparent in thermal infared, so glasses look like mirrors (and so do our windows).

Self-portrait reflected in the Cupola window.

Don’s blog also appears at airspacemag.com.