Updates Artemis II

SpaceEngine version. I took out the clouds so I can see more of the land area. The encircled islands is my country, the Philippines.
 

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A close-up view from the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II crew’s lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, captures a total solar eclipse, with only part of the Moon visible in the frame as it fully obscures the Sun. Although the full lunar disk extends beyond the image, the Sun’s faint corona remains visible as a soft halo of light around the Moon’s edge. From this deep-space vantage point, the Moon appeared large enough to sustain nearly 54 minutes of totality, far longer than total solar eclipses typically seen from Earth. This cropped perspective emphasizes the scale of the alignment and reveals subtle structure in the corona during the rare, extended eclipse observed by the crew. The bright silver glint on the left edge of the image is the planet Venus. The round, dark gray feature visible along the Moon’s horizon between the 9 and 10 o’clock positions is Mare Crisium, a feature visible from Earth. We see faint lunar features because light reflected off of Earth provides a source of illumination.
art002e009298~large.jpg
 
HFTfOBWXEAAoVmC

this look so unusual to me
Moon is almost ....brown !? :oops:

I can make more realistic pics both in Orbiter and Space engine
😁
 
Heard Christina talking about the colors perception. She said that some colored parts inside the cabin actually affect that perception. They used black T-shirts to hide these parts and she said it was much better like that. Mission Control said they would keep this in mind for future missions.
 
gamer19 said:
this look so unusual to me
Moon is almost ....brown !? :oops:

I can make more realistic pics both in Orbiter and Space engine
😁
Click to expand...

N_Molson said:
Heard Christina talking about the colors perception. She said that some colored parts inside the cabin actually affect that perception. They used black T-shirts to hide these parts and she said it was much better like that. Mission Control said they would keep this in mind for future missions.
Click to expand...

Interestingly, Christina had also noted during today's science debrief that, once the Earth came into view close to the Moon's limb, the perception of the color of the Moon's surface becomes a taupe color to the human eye or, at least, to her eye. She specifically described the appearance as "matte" with the Earth in view, and emphasized how bright the Earth is in relation to the Moon. Partly the product, I suspect, of eyes and photographic equipment both adjusting to the Earth's brightness.

Separately, the crew described the appearance of greens and blues around the Aristarchus plateau region on the nearside. The Apollo astronauts described similar detail regarding coloration in other areas as they got closer to the Moon, and it is incredible to imagine the amount of detail visible to the naked eye from such relative proximity that simply can't be captured photographically. An advantage of human exploration.
 
barrygolden said:
Is it just me but seems really strange that they didn't fly over the south pole looking for landing sites
Click to expand...
That is not possible on a free return trajectory, at least without a huge MCC or weird trajectories that vastly extend mission times a la Aretmis I.
 
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