Looking at photographs showing the stars we realize that these images depict an imperceivable reality.
Longer exposure times yield the appearance of stars which otherwise are not visible to the eye, and the use of telescopes, the image scanning of invisible wavelenghts and the filtering influence of the Earth’s atmosphere further add to the fact that these images do not represent «visible truth», but rather are a product of an elaborated design process.
When I set off to find out what space looks from space, I started with designing an experiment involving an astronaut, and ended up dealing with the «human calibration» of photographs, and the question of truth and illusion in imaging and cognition.
The astronaut Jim Voss, who spent six months aboard the International Space Station, was asked to describe his view of outer space from the space station. I sent him a poster with several images of the same section of the sky, but with a varying number of stars and asked him to mark the image that seemed to best depict what he had seen himself.

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    From : Christian Waldvogel (hochnebel@waldvogel.com)
    Date : May 11, 2006 11:36:18 GMT+02:00
    Subject : «how does space look from space?»
    To : jim.voss@nasa.edu

dear james voss
thank you very much for aggreeing to participate in my art project
"how does space look from space?"!

i am a swiss artist and educated architect who's work circles around
utopian ideas, fictious worlds, the planets in the solar system and earth
as a planet in the universe. in my newest project, i investigate how
exactly space looks if seen from space by naked eye. for this purpose i
have designed a poster that shows different images from the same section
of space, with the star visibilty limit changing: the first image contains
almost no stars, the last one very many.

now i would like to ask someone who has flown into space -- you -- to
clearly mark the image that comes closest to what you have seen, and then
sign the poster, both using the supplied red felt pen and both executed in
the way you wish.

the deal would be that i'd send two posters, both signed and numbered by
me and so being an 'official' art piece, and you would keep one and send
the other one back. so if you still agree in participating please let me
know where to send the posters.

[ ... ]

again, thank you very much for your willingness to participate, with my
best regards,

-christian waldvogel

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fig. 1)  The email to Astronaut Jim S. Voss explaining the task
fig. 2) Framed poster (installation view Museum of Fine Arts Bern).
Inkjet with silkscreen printed stars, astronaut’s caption and signature, 1200 × 840mm, single copy.
Collection Museum of Fine Arts, Bern/Switzerland