Tayside and Fife have been brought into stunning focus by the International Space Station after astronaut Chris Hadfield turned his camera lens towards Scotland for the first time.
Commander Chris Hadfield (53), of the Canadian Space Agency, shot the images out of the window of his capsule orbiting 250 miles above the Earth.
The astronaut wrote on his Twitter page: “With her currently clear late-February skies, today seems like a good day for pictures of Scotland. Agreed?”
Over the following hours he took a plethora of photos of Scotland sweeping from the west to the east and showing barely a cloud in the sky offering what he described as “February snow on the peaks” and a stunning mix of “mist and mountains”.
The pictures prompted First Minister Alex Salmond to send an online message to Commander Hadfield inviting him to visit the country once he leaves the international space station.
In a reply from orbit, Commander Hadfield said: “I’d love to again visit Scotland once back on Earth. I’ve been from Oban to Aberdeen, but there’s so much more to see and do.”
Mr Salmond said: “Commander Hadfield’s photographs of Scotland from space are absolutely stunning, and I hope to welcome him to experience our country with his feet firmly on the ground during our Year of Homecoming in 2014.
* Gallery: Scotland from space
“By then Scotland will have seen its first satellite launched by Glasgow firm Clyde Space, continuing a history of connections with the cosmos.
“Lunar explorer Neil Armstrong’s roots were in Langholm and a book of Burns’ works made a return trip in 2010 when British-born astronaut Nick Patrick took it on his own visit to the International Space Station and back after being presented with it by 10 Scottish Space School pupils.”
Commander Hadfield has been taking pictures from the International Space Station since he arrived on December 2, and posting them online. He has almost half a million followers on Twitter, and 55,000 on Facebook.
He has captured images of most major cities around the world, of powerful cyclones and hurricanes, and witnessed the Earth at her most beautiful.
Lake Baikal in Siberia, Washington DC at night, and a desert river in South Africa have been posted over the past few days, along with a picture of his home town of Milton, Ontario, where he grew up on a farm.
The first Canadian to walk in space, Commander Hadfield, a former air force fighter pilot, flew Space Shuttle missions in 1995 and 2001.