IF YOU DON’T already follow him on Twitter, you might not have heard of astronaut Chris Hadfield – but if you have, you’ll know he has a pretty fanatical following online and among geeks worldwide.

Hadfield is currently abroad the International Space Station – of which he will take full command next month, when a trio of fellow travellers return to Earth – and has taken to regularly tweeting photographs shot from 350km above the surface of our planet.

Here’s his latest: Dublin at night.

“Tá Éire fíorálainn!,” he tweeted this evening, making an admirable stab at Irish spelling. “Land of green hills and dark beer. With capital Dublin glowing in the Irish night.”

(If you’re a bit confused, the photo isn’t facing the ‘right way up’ – you should rotate it about 120° anti-clockwise to position it correctly. That is, the direction corresponding to 4 o’clock on a clock is actually north.)

Check out how dark it is in the Phoenix Park…

Edit: Because a few readers have asked, here’s the photo the right way up:

Read: ‘My daughter is in Ireland’: Astronaut Chris Hadfield says ‘ask me anything