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Artemis II spacecraft imaged from Earth by backyard astrophotography

April 4, 2026Skymaps | The Evening Sky Map

Skymaps shares backyard imaging of Artemis II as a streak with live stacking and plate solving, showing how amateur astronomy tools can track crewed deep space missions.

Artemis II imaged a few minutes ago from my Bortle 7 backyard in southern Australia.
The 29x30sec Live Stack shows a distinct pattern of brightening and dimming as the Orion spacecraft headed into a Sagittarius star cloud.
Artemis II appears as a short streak in this 30 sec image taken at 15:35 UT (2 April 2026). JPL Horizons was used to compute the position of the spacecraft every few minutes, thus enabling it to be found using plate solving.
Skymaps | The Evening Sky Map
astrophotographytrackingorion spacecraftartemis mission

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