Comprehensive Côte d'Azur

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquets is spending six months on the International Space Station as part of his second mission Alpha. In his free time, like many astronauts, he enjoys looking out of the Cupola windows at Earth. This collage of pictures shows an overview of the Côte d'Azur or French Riviera made from many pictures mapped together, digitally rotated and assembled into this large collage. The images were taken on 7 June 2021 from 11:57 GMT.

Thomas shared this picture on social media with the caption: "Cannes, its bay and the Lérins Islands. I love the light blue areas, you'd think they were a blotch on the photo, but no: it's really like that! I remember anchoring between the islands in the turquoise water. Seen from here, the boats draw trails in the water that remind me of planes in the sky. I took advantage of it, I photographed the whole French Riviera..."

Thomas asked to have the series of highly zoomed-in pictures aligned into this collage to show the area in detail. The International Space Station flies at roughly 400 km altitude so Thomas uses the longest lenses available onboard.

https://esamultimedia.esa.int/img/2021/07/jsc2021e027626-Cote_dAzur_result.tif