Aerial RGB photographs of the Arctic Ocean sea ice surface were captured during MOSAiC (Leg 5) in August–September 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.945980). This dataset comprises RGBA orthomosaics in GeoTiff format, created from DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone flights conducted over the Central Observatory 3 (CO3). The data is projected using the UTM51N coordinate system (EPSG: 32651).The primary goal of this dataset is to facilitate the interpretation of co-located Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-based spectral and broadband albedo observations (https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.974281). However, orthomosaics also offer insights into sea ice surface conditions for a variety of other applications. The filenames include info on the date, the location over the ice camp (Place), and the flight number. The time indicated in the filename refers to the timestamp of the first photograph of the flight. In most cases, the photograph's geotags underwent ice drift compensation before alignment, as indicated by the suffix 'driftC' at the end of the filename. If the original geotags were used, the filename includes the suffix 'original'. All files are provided at their original full spatial resolution ranging between 0.71 and 1.54 cm.