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Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

bbc.com

241–250 of 419 posts

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#241
post #202

How are people still flat-earthers after stuff like this

Maybe I'm just a dumb optimist, but I've always assumed that the flat earthers started out as an enteraining debate club intentionally trying to prove something impossible just for the challenge, which got overtaken by a tiny number of vocal idiots. I have heard they largely have moved on to Qanon, which tracks.

The initial modern flat earth movement was absolutely trolling, no doubt about it. But as the myth grew, enough grifters and actual idiots glomed onto the idea that it became what it originally mocked. Poe's law and all that.

Similar to the "I fell in love with an AI!" folks, it's largely undercover salesmen hawking their goods to the gullible.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#242
post #81

Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019... ), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...

While the D5 is a great camera it's ~10 years old. Wonder why they didn't go for the Z9 which is its modern mirrorless equivalent.

It might be the newest thing on the ship.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#243

Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019... ), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...

Almost 6 decades later, Omega still has a firm hold on NASA by the wrist. https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/omega-speedmaster-artemis...

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#245

Fun question: What time was this taken? The exif includes time, but not time zone. They are not quite at the moon, and Lunar Time is under active development but not official. Also clocks tick slower under the moon's weaker gravity. (Or is it faster?) Anyway, what time was this taken?

I think the clocks on board Orion are set to Houston time, which would be 5 hours behind UTC (because of Daylight Saving). But I'm not sure. I would expect the EXIF time to be in whatever time zone the spacecraft's clocks are set to.

> clocks tick slower under the moon's weaker gravity. (Or is it faster?)

Compared to clocks at rest on Earth, clocks on board Orion right now are ticking faster, because it's at a high enough altitude above the Earth that the faster ticking due to higher altitude outweighs the slower ticking due to speed relative to the Earth.

That will be true for most of the mission. For clocks in orbit about the Earth, the "breakeven point" where the altitude effect and the speed effect cancel out and the clock ticks at the same rate as an Earth clock is at, IIRC, about 1.5 Earth radii. So clocks on the ISS, for example, tick slower than Earth clocks; but clocks on the GPS satellites (orbiting at 4.2 Earth radii) tick faster (and there is an adjustment made for this on each satellite so that the time signals they send out match Earth clock rates).

For a spacecraft moving at escape velocity, which is going to be roughly true for Orion all the way until splashdown, I think the "breakeven point" is higher, at a little over 2 Earth radii. Orion will reach that point on the way back a few hours before splashdown, I think.

The Moon's gravity well is too shallow to make an appreciable difference in any of these calculations.

I should emphasize that all these tick rate effects are tiny, on the order of one part in a billion to one part in a hundred billion. Even when you add up the difference over the entire mission, it's still only on the order of hundreds of microseconds (i.e., the astronauts end up aging a few hundred microseconds more than people who stayed on Earth).

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#246
The comparison pictures look like there is more dust in the air today. They don't explain this effect, so I assume it is related to time of day the photo was taken, or camera settings, not actual dust accumulation compared to 1972. However, the direct comparison gives the impression they want people to interpret like the air is getting dirtier?

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#247
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have probably shot it wide open at f/2.8 rather than cranking the ISO up to 51200. Incredibly impressed at the steady hands for a sharp image at 1/4 s shutter speed though! Maybe they just let the camera float in space with the mirror up, triggering it remotely.

Wide open generally sacrifices lens sharpness.

Sure, but less grain is often worth it. There's a reason why fast lenses exist. The high quality lens being used here can probably still resolve 20 MP adequately even wide open.

Re: Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth

#248
post #243

Looking at the EXIF (with exiftool) for the image uploaded by NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/art002e00019... ), apparently this was taken by a Nikon D5 with an AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and developed with Lightroom. It also seems like very little was done in Lightroom. Amazing... I dumped the whole EXIF here: https://gist.github.com/umgefahren/a6f555e6588a98adb74eed79d...

Almost 6 decades later, Omega still has a firm hold on NASA by the wrist. https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/omega-speedmaster-artemis...

X33 Gen2 certainly looks better than gen1
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