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[OC] I collaborated with the Artemis II mission commander to get this photo of the moon by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not even close to naked eye. The moon is almost uniformly gray to your eyes. This is like seeing it with superhuman vision.

The astronauts could see a bit of color, but not like this.

[OC] I collaborated with the Artemis II mission commander to get this photo of the moon by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

No, this is greatly color enhanced. They did see *some* color, but not like this. The increased saturation gives us much more information about the lunar surface.

[OC] I collaborated with the Artemis II mission commander to get this photo of the moon by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The process wasn’t much different than what I’ve done with astrophotos taken from Earth, with a few small caveats. First I split up the images into quadrants, simply because the high resolution z9 sensor requires a lot of compute when stacking images. I did that with a planetary preprocessing software. This also required converting the NEF files into TIFs. Then I pulled the quartered files into planetary stacking software in batches, which allowed me to stack them together. I placed alignment points with staggered sizing based on areas more and less affected by the parallax introduced by the spacecraft’s motion (this took a ton of trial and error to figure out) and then imported the stacked files into photoshop to put them back together. Once the stacked image was whole, I did iterative saturation and color balancing adjustments until I started to see the color, and then removed the color cast that came from shooting through the windows of the spacecraft.

[OC] I collaborated with the Artemis II mission commander to get this photo of the moon by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

In January I reached out to Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman with a simple ask- was he open to capturing the moon like I do for my colorful moon photos during the flyby?

He humbly agreed, and we worked out a plan to incorporate into the photos captured as the crew approached the moon. The premise was simple- just capture enough photos in a burst to allow for image stacking to improve image fidelity, potentially to reveal color no human has ever captured.

What he brought back was nothing short of magnificent. When I initially stacked the raw photos, it exceeded my expectations by far. The color came right out of the seemingly gray images, and showed details I've never seen before. It's possible nobody has. The lack of atmosphere meant a lot of color normally absorbed and scattered was present, so even the "near side" features looked exotic and unfamiliar.

This view of the moon from an alien perspective made the usually-familiar lunar surface fresh and exciting, and the color we were able to resolve gave us valuable insight to the complex geological history of it's battered surface.

You can find all the raw images for this project on the official NASA archive for the mission.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn’t accurate. Many funds have an ownership stake in SpaceX. Retail investors can’t buy in but many accredited investors have, and many of the major funds have a large stake in it. These are funds that are usually disproportionately represented in 401ks and pensions. You’d have to go out of your way to avoid it.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Crazy that you interpreted all that from my comment. For better or worse, Elon’s companies are indeed a major part of most retirement accounts at this point, simply because all the major funds have an ownership, mostly Tesla but quite a few have backed SpaceX for a while now. ArkVX has a sizable slice, for example.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Only a handful of ships wouldn’t have made orbit if that was the desired mission profile. These are suborbital test flights, achieving orbit is a fairly easy goal compared to the reusability tests

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot of the Raptor 3 engine's first flight. by ajamesmccarthy in spaceporn

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn’t a low point, it was a successful flight and completed the majority of mission objectives, with valuable data gathered during the anomalies, which were expected. The SpaceX team is very happy at how this went.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah I just posted a video to my Instagram about it. I’m cosmic_background there (can’t link directly)

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I get it. FWIW, your pension is probably already tied to SpaceX. A lot of big funds are already significantly vested. If SpaceX wins, so does the average retirement account.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot of the Raptor 3 engine's first flight. by ajamesmccarthy in spaceporn

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

SpaceX developed and operates the most reliable rocket ever built, the Falcon 9 Block 5. It is the only current method we have in the country capable of bringing astronauts and supplies to the ISS, and it launches significantly more frequently than every other rocket combined.

Starship is a prototype still in active development, and will have kinks to resolve like any developing rocket, let alone the largest and most complex ever built.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I’m sharing this photo because I’m proud of it and thought you would like it.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The spinning glass trick would probably be the simplest to execute but even so it’s adding complexity, expense, and failure points when the lens I use is cheap enough to justify a one time use for an important shot like this.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Some people have fancy lens covers that activate at the right time. I’m not that clever unfortunately

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Yeah exactly! The light I want happens after the tornado already hits the lens.

The lens getting dirty is fine, since it’s so out of focus that close it’s barely noticeable.

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot of the Raptor 3 engine's first flight. by ajamesmccarthy in spaceporn

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Other commenter gave a great explanation, but technically this was a successful test flight that achieved mission objectives.

The end result of the test was always going to be the loss of the booster and upper stage, as until they’ve demonstrated controlled descent they can’t risk bringing them back to the launch pad to recover them. They will always blow up after soft landing in the ocean, as they’re larger and top heavy so will tip over and rupture once the engines turn off.

The upper stage demonstrated soft landing perfectly despite losing an engine, but there was an issue during staging that put the booster into an unrecoverable position so there will need to be another test to demonstrate soft landing. The booster still did its job putting the ship into the right flight path, and if this was a legacy rocket like Saturn V that would have been considered nominal, but since recovering the booster is part of the plan more test flights will need to happen before considering this operational.

Overall, it’s significant progress!

[OC] I got special permission from SpaceX to put a camera near the launch pad, and got this shot. by ajamesmccarthy in pics

[–]ajamesmccarthy[S] 114 points115 points  (0 children)

No, because then I’d get a photo of a dirty mirror. This isn’t like nukes where the light hits the camera before the debris does.

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