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Travel 62 million miles above the Earth: Check. Record a hit song: Check. Win a prestigious photography award: Done.

Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has received several awards and honours since returning to Earth last May after a 5-month tour on the International Space Station. The latest laurels credit his talents with a camera.

The Professional Photographers of Canada awarded Hadfield an honorary Service of Photographic Arts Designation to recognize the astronaut's above-average photography, which, it said, "increased awareness of the beauty of our planet."

Hadfield thanked the organization in a YouTube video and credited his special tripod – the space station floating 1.2 million feet about the planet – for providing an endless change of "colour and textures and light perpetually underneath me."

Hadfield thanked his photography instructors, his father for buying him his first camera, and the Canadian Space Agency and NASA, "who gave me the opportunity to point the lens and try and capture the magic that is our world."

Chris Hadfield/NASA/CSA

The Great Lakes

Chris Hadfield/NASA/CSA

A sunset silhouette

NASA/CSA

Hadfield shooting in space

Chris Hadfield/NASA/CSA

The sun over the Earth

Chris Hadfield/NASA/CSA

Dawn

Chris Hadfield/NASA/CSA

Cloud cover and sparkling sunshine