An opportunity was created for the ground science team of the UHU experiment to meet Tibor Kapu, the Hungarian astronaut of the Ax-4 mission, and discuss the practical aspect of carrying out nighttime video observations from the International Space Station. The meeting, held on the 14th of January, 2026, was particularly useful as it helped to better understand the astronaut’s point of view of the experiment. Tibor shared his memories from the moment he first heard about this experiment and TLEs through the training session until he actually faced the various challenges of documenting nighttime electrical activity in the Earth’s atmosphere from space in microgravity.

Both the camera and the available working space in the ISS Cupola had to be set up properly by the time a target observation time window opened. As it happened, the ISS flew in so-called high sun beta angle conditions in approximately half of the mission’s time frame. The Cupola is continuously exposed to direct sunlight in such condition, making it practically impossible to conduct nighttime video observations. Attempts were made to overcome this issue and the meeting provided a great opportunity to discuss how the astronauts see the problem and whether further different ideas could possibly be suitable for solving it in the future.

All participants agreed in that effective communication is an essential ingredient of the success. Although the UHU experiment doesn’t demand very special operations from the astronauts in space, doing it properly requires practice in setting up the camera and getting oriented in the Cupola for easy localization of the observational targets. The astronauts often learn good practices even during the completion of the scheduled experiments and from each other, too. However, unexpected difficulties may occur any time. Therefore, the possibility for the crew to communicate with the ground science team directly seems to be an option desirable to have. This can be especially important in missions where it is the first time for the crew of the mission that nighttime Earth observation is among their tasks.