On Nov. 15, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida, sending the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft with a four astronauts on board to meet up with the International Space Station (ISS). The crew members were US astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi. The spaceship docked with the ISS on Nov. 16.
Noguchi has used his Twitter account to post photographs taken from space of the Earth’s surface, including Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya and Osaka in Japan as well as Florida, Washington DC and New Orleans in the US.
As the ISS orbits around the Earth, on Dec. 4 Noguchi posted an aerial photo of Hong Kong and Macau and another one of Taiwan. He wrote in English “Taiwan is cloudy tonight — this is the best I got,” followed in Japanese by “Sorry to everyone in Taiwan; this is not a good photo.” He also noted that the cities in the photo were Kaohsiung and Tainan at night.
Photo from Soichi Noguchi’s Twitter timeline 照片取自野口聰一推特
A lot of the comments posted below said that Noguchi had captured the murky feeling of Taiwanese cities on a cloudy night. Many of the comments praised the photo, saying things like “It is very atmospheric” and “I have seen a night view of Taiwan on a return flight from Vietnam — it left a deep impression, and I am glad to see it again.” Others wrote “It is interesting to see how each city’s lights are different” and “It is really beautiful — Thank you for taking a photo of Taiwan and posting it online.”
(Translated by Julian Clegg, Taipei Times)
美國佛州卡納維爾角甘迺迪太空中心十一月十五日發射「SpaceX」的「獵鷹九號」火箭,將載有四名太空人的「載人飛龍堅韌號」太空船送上國際太空站,分別是美籍太空人邁克爾·霍普金斯、維克多·葛洛佛、香農·華克和日籍太空人野口聰一。太空船於十六日與國際太空站完成對接。
Photo from Soichi Noguchi’s Twitter timeline 照片取自野口聰一推特
野口陸續透過推特帳號發布他從太空拍攝的地面照片,包括日本東京、京都、名古屋、大阪,以及美國佛羅里達、華盛頓特區、紐奧良等地。
隨著國際太空站繞行地球,野口十二月四日貼出香港、澳門,以及台灣的空拍照,他用英文表示「台灣今晚是陰天,這是我拍得最好的了」,再用日文寫「台灣的大家抱歉,這不是一張好照片。」他也註明照片中的城市是台灣的高雄和台南的夜間景色。
不少在下面留言的網友認為,野口將陰天的台灣城市拍出美麗的朦朧感,紛紛留言稱讚「相當有氣氛」、「我從越南的回程航班上看過台灣夜景,非常令人印象深刻,我很高興再次見到它」。另外有人寫「有趣的是,每個城市的燈光都不一樣」、「真的是太美麗了,謝謝你拍了台灣並把台灣貼出來」。
(自由時報)
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