Naples

Taken at night from the International Space Station, this picture is easily recognisable as Naples, Italy because of the black hole in the bright lights: Mount Vesuvius. Understandably, few people live on the still-active volcano, meaning no street lights or houses illuminate the area.

The centre of Naples is slightly above and to the left – the brightest part of the image. To the left is the Mediterranean Sea with the islands of Ischia, Procida and Capri lit up, revealing human presence.

The image was taken on a clear night from 400 km above but it was not cloud-free around Naples. The top half of the image shows grey clouds.

This image was taken with the Nightpod camera-stand that tracks the movement of Earth passing under the International Space Station at 28 800 km/h, keeping any target fixed in the middle of the viewfinder. Standard cameras fixed to Nightpod can take pictures with longer exposure times so astronauts can capture sharper pictures of cities at night.