Moon and Venus beautiful tonight

This is me excited about the very faintest hint of a solar halo

Nice Blue Ridge sunset. Venus looking remarkably bright. And a nice late season view of Orion among the stars.

Who's filling out their brackets????

Tried comet hunting this morning from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Low clouds hurt the view. By the time comet rose above clouds, sky was brightening. But it made for a nice sunrise!

I’ve found Katla on Netflix. Interesting Icelandic horror/mystery. Loving the familiar sites in Vik. @sophiecarr.bsky.social , I trust you’re familiar with it?

Is it just me? When I saw the image of crew recovery from Artemis II, with the helicopter blades making that circular pattern in the water, it reminded me of something...

Is it just me? When I saw the image of crew recovery from Artemis II, with the helicopter blades making that circular pattern in the water, it reminded me of something...

If you’re up comet hunting next weekend , there seems to be a nice planetary conjunction before sunrise. Mercury, Mars, Saturn and Neptune dancing. Blue box is FOV for my Fujifilm XF18-135mm kit lens fully zoomed on my X-T4

And since the moon was out, I had to grab a moon streak photo in the style of @bryanminear.com #Fujifilm X-M5, XF150-600mm

Comet hunting this morning with @jbetzner.bsky.social. C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) was there, but not naked eye visible. Thin clouds were not helpful. Not my best comet photos, but nice to see the green blob.

Me and my daughter Lindsay in front of an Orion flight test vehicle at the Virginia Air and Space Acience Center. Also a Mercury, Gemini And Apollo module that I’ve had the honor to view.

Artemis II reaching 21,000 mph

Separation of Orion from service module!

Artemis II doesn’t reverse direction like its ground track implies. Far out, its motion is mostly radial (toward Earth), so its small eastward speed is slower than Earth’s rotation, so it appears to drift west. Closer in, tangential speed grows and overtakes Earth’s rotation, so it moves east.

Artemis II astronauts definitely getting closer to home. Screenshot from the YouTube live feed

I have my first pair of quality over-ear headphones. Now I need to build a playlist to enjoy them. So far, I’ve been most pleased with Shellshock by New Order and Titi Me Preguntó by Bad Bunny. But looking to add to the collection. Any suggestions?

New SkyCalPro Release! Added visual sky track for ISS Close Passes and Transits of Sun and Moon. Improved ISS events with more detailed data. Fixed an issue where some ISS transits were missed. Thanks Chris Becke @chrisbecke.bsky.social for helping with that! skycalpro.com #Astronomy

Of course, Aaron taking some time off means the news is going to be just wild.

The FY 2027 NASA budget request hides its science cuts by omitting mission names instead of explicitly zeroing them out. We did the work and found 54 missions cancelled in this proposal. This is another extinction-level event for NASA science. Full list: planetary.org/save-nasa-science

A bit of a different take on the amazing Artemis II launch footage. Here I stitched clips from the four Solar Array Wing Cameras to make this panoramic video. This is during the later part of the Core Stage burn until MECO and stage separation, sped up to 10x. 🔭🧪 #Artemis

Some more Artemis II awesomeness in the latest images. Looking out the window at Moon/Earth, titled "Still Life" and "A Room with a View" And a view from the GoPro of Earthset titled "Orion POV: Destination and Home"

Just saw Artemis II on the Roku screen saver!

22° halo

Just leaving this here

Latest NASA Artemis II images continue to arrive.

Ooh! Eclipse!

Earthrise! @philplait.bsky.social , you might want to see this if you haven’t yet.

By the way folks if anybody needs someone to talk off the cuff about lunar science and doesn’t want to deal with the bureaucracy around trying to get someone from NASA, I’m your man 👋🏻

Very cool to see the Moon pass through the Artemis II trajectory

AOS!!! (The app refreshed when the data stream returned)

Holy wow. Artemis is about to go behind the moon from our POV so that's Earth as it starts to slide behind the moon from the space capsule's POV!

anybody who grew up on scifi knows that that 40 minute window where the astronauts are out of contact is where the weird shit happens that plays out over the rest of the story

Moon is about to cross the Artemis II return flight path

Very cool to scroll back in the NASA Artemis II Live Views From Orion YouTube to see how the Moon is getting bigger. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rwf...)

They're referring to the "annular ring". Doesn't "annulus" mean "ring"? So it's a ring ring?

I'm also loving this view of the Artemis II trajectory. A gravity-driven space ballet.

The moon will be "threading a needle". From this perspective, it's like the Moon is flying through the Orion capsule path instead of Orion flying around the Moon.

Orion passes the furthest distance that humans (the crew of Apollo 13) have traveled from Earth.

Very much enjoying the detailed Artemis II imaging instructions review by the science team in Houston to the Astronauts.

[Artemis crew about to begin lunar photo session] Hey, did you bring the SD cards? I thought you had them...

Looks like Artemis II has crossed the lunar orbit distance. This screenshot (slightly annotated by me) from the live telemetry simulation site: www.nasa.gov/missions/art...

Very cool that Artemis II astronauts got a recorded greeting from Jim Lovell this morning. (Recorded in 2025 before his passing)

As Artemis II continues its journey, it has nearly reached a point where the gravitational attraction from Earth and the Moon are equal. At this distance from Earth it is only pulling with an acceleration of 0.00267 m/s² (vs 9.8 m/s² on Earth’s surface) Only 9% greater than Moon’s pull.

As of now, Artemis II is still feeling about 3.3 times more of a gravitational force from Earth than from the Moon. But it’s getting closer. On the surface of Earth, you’d feel a gravitational acceleration of 9.81 m/s². At the moment, Artemis II is feeling 0.00295 m/s².

As Artemis II continues its journey to the Moon, having passed the halfway point late last night, the next point of interest I’m watching for is when the Orion Spacecraft passes the gravitational neutral point and is more strongly attracted to the Moon than to Earth. 1/2

#ArtemisII half way to the moon!

Math implies about 3.5 hours till Artemis II is half way to the Moon

Aurora visible in this Artemis II shot as well.

Good News: The NASA Budget Estimates pdf has alt text Bad News: It's AI Generated content (and wrong)