Artemis I - Orion
Taken by Gianluca Masi on November 27, 2022 @
Ceccano, Italy
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Date Taken: 2022:11:27 18:27:12
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Details:
I managed to capture, minutes ago, the Orion spacecraft while it orbits the Moon. I used the Virtual Telescope Project's robotic facility in Italy.
The telescope tracked Orion’s apparent motion, this is why stars look like long trails while the probe is a sharp dot of light.
Taking such a picture was quite difficult. While I planned to capture Orion on its way to the Moon, weather made that impossible and, once it cooperated, the Moon was “new”, so not visible from Earth. I tried this evening, at dusk, hoping to spot it, despite the target was less than 20 deg high above the South-Western horizon and just 6 degrees away from the Moon, adding its glare to an already bright background.
To capture the spacecraft, I used the JPL’s Horizons System and asked my Software Bisque’s Paramount ME robotic mount to track it, something I have been doing many times. So, I started imaging and the very first image showed Orion pretty well: everything worked to perfection.
At the imaging time, Orion was about 427.000 km from us, still father than the Moon: yesterday, “Orion surpassed the distance record for a mission with a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and back to Earth”, as Nasa said.
Photographer's website:
https://www.virtualtelescope.eu
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