The International Space Station orbits the Earth from a distance of 431 kilometers at speeds of 28,800 kilometers per hour. It's a great place to take photos and videos of the Earth.

The European Space Agency has just released a time lapse video  using photographs of multiple lightning strikes in Romania taken by the Nightpod camera mounted on the ISS.

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The Nightpod camera is specially designed to survive in space as is unlike regular cameras. It focuses on a fixed point and keeps the target in the central frame during the entire time of exposure. The result is a final image that is in focus, ultra clear and sharp despite the fast rotating motion of the ISS.

The Nightpod camera is connected to the space station's computer database that is controlled and calibrated by the astronauts according to the ISS' altitude, the direction of its vertical axis along with its pitch and roll that changes ever so often.

The automatic mode of Nightpod enables the camera to take perfectly focused photos of the same target over time. When these photos are all consolidated and combined, they produce high resolution maps of the planet shown during different times of day.

This particular video was taken in 2012 from 49 images that have been integrated. The ESA crew credits the Nightpod camera for this stunning image as they wouldn't have accomplished this feat without the help of this ingenious space camera.

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