Astronaut uses Nikon Z9 to capture epic aurora photos from International Space Station

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick set out for the International Space Station (ISS) in March of this year, as the commander of the SpaceX Crew-8 Mission, and has since become increasingly popular on X (formerly Twitter) for his stunning photographs from space. 

His beautiful images have been taken from both inside and outside the ISS, and now his photographs have gone viral again as he managed to capture the ethereally green aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, from space. 

Dominick snapped the shot of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the ISS, with the green aurora in the background. 

In a post dated August 02, Dominick wrote: "Recent solar activity pushed the aurora closer to us. The Soyuz hangs from the station in a stream of aurora.

"Soyuz is illuminated in a light blue from a sun behind the camera and in front of the space station that is just about to rise."

The astronaut, who will spend approximately six months aboard the space station, revealed that his camera settings to capture the aurora were 1/4 sec, f/1.4 ISO6400 using the Nikon Z9 with a DSLR 50mm lens.

During a previous astrophotography masterclass live from space, Dominick said that he has also used a Nikon D5 while aboard the space station.

In another post, dated August 11, Dominick explained that he had recently received some space post, which included some new camera lenses, and "spent a good part of the weekend with a 15mm, T1.8 lens." (How much was the shipping?)

"Made a whole bunch of timelapses," he wrote. "Still looking [through] 1000s of frames, lots of which have aurora but the milky way in this one stood out."

His image of the milky way was taken using the lens and settings of 0.8 sec, T1.8, ISO25600.

Dominick also managed to capture a clear image of the curve of the moon against the aurora:

"The moon makes it way towards the horizon to set amongst red and green aurora . . . I was setup in a different window and saw this through another window. I made a quick camera, camera mount, and shroud teardown and setup. Felt so lucky to grab this shot.

You can check out his behind-the-scenes of his auroroa shots in the video embedded below (hat tip to Nikon Rumors for the spot). If you missed the astrophotography masterclass in July you can listen again on X.

Take a look at our guide to the best cameras for astrophotography, the best lenses for astrophotography and the best star tracker mounts for astrophotography.