Views from International Space Station astronauts help visual Earth in different ways.
Both of these photos of Madagascar were taken from the International Space Station (ISS) by astronauts using handheld digital cameras. The first photo was taken using a 10 millimeter lens, sometimes called a fisheye lens. The second was captured using a 58 millimeter lens, making this field of view slightly more zoomed in than what a human eye sees. For comparison, a smartphone camera usually has a field of view equivalent to a 24 to 30 mm lens on a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera.
Smaller lens sizes are helpful when astronauts want to photograph broad geographic regions on Earth. The first photo captures the entire island of Madagascar as viewed while looking down through the round center window in the ISS Cupola. The optical design of the small lens size causes Madagascar to appear distorted in comparison to a geometrically corrected map view. Spacecraft parts, including a docked Russian Soyuz capsule and the ISS solar panels, appear around the photo perimeter.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory
