I took this photo recently while out on the pacific coast. Thought it'd be appropriate to share it now since we have four human beings on their way to the moon 😯. As someone who wasn't born yet during the Apollo missions, it's a pretty surreal feeling.

One thing I like about the Artemis II crew is their attitude. I'm a STEM educator in my day job, and have a pretty strong (even fervent) belief that space travel can and *should* be done to share the awe and beauty of the vast unknown with *all* of humanity. I think the astronauts headed to the moon right now are doing a pretty good job of embodying that. ☺️

Sadly, that's not what I see in general in tech, and space is no exception. It seems like elon musk & co. want to turn outer space into a playground for the mega rich. And now I guess they want to train superintelligent AIs on orbiting data centers. What could possibly go wrong?

Anyways, it's just been nice to see a small W for humanity. Thanks NASA 🫡

How has everyone else been feeling about the Artemis missions? Have you had time to watch any of the downlinks or interviews with the astronauts?

~dragonfly

---

Photo info:
4 minutes of exposure, shot in 13" subs on Nikon Z6 ii with 16mm f/2 lens on a regular tripod. Processed in GIMP and Sequator.

---

#CDARC #astronomy #astrophotography #astrodon #milkyway #science #nature #moon #artemis #california #spring #art #landscape #GIMP #sequator

Sometimes you just have to sit there and wonder about it all.

I took this photo on an outing with the CDARC meetup, which I co-organize. If you're in California and interested in doing photography with us, come check us out! We're doing a trip to Pinnacles NP on April 18-19th. https://www.meetup.com/astrophotography-under-dark-skies/

---

~6 minutes of exposure taken at f/2 with a 16mm lens on my nikon z6 ii. Stacked using sequator and processed in GIMP.

---

#CDARC #astronomy #astrophotography #astrodon #milkyway #science #nature #artemis-mission #theuniversemannnn #california #spring #poetry #art