ESOApr 14

We spotted some of that #Moon joy!

In the early morning of 9 April, ESO's New Technology Telescope turned its gaze to the sky above La Silla in #Chile and caught something special.

Not a distant galaxy, nor a star cluster, but a streak of light with a very special story: NASA's Artemis II Orion spacecraft with a crew of four, returning from an epic journey around the Moon.

📷 ESO/I. Saviane

#astrodon #astronomy #space #science

Show threadPᵉtɘr Wᵉil8acher
@esoastronomy Are there any details on how this was taken? I.e., what the parts are where the light was "absorbed"?
Apr 14 at 4:57pmWeb
Show threadESOApr 15
@PWei888 This is a stack of three 10 minute exposures, hence the two large gaps along the trail (the last exposure at the bottom only captured a small part of the trail before the spacecraft left the FOV). As for the smaller dips within each individual exposure, they might be due to scintillation.