Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
The first private mission to land safely on the moon is currently underway, and we’ve finally been treated to seeing some of the images sent back from space. Hakuto-R is said to be off to a good start, and judging by the images, it certainly looks that way.
At first glance, it looks like a photo of a crescent moon, a fingernail sliver that we are so accustomed to seeing. However, these images are of our own planet, a sort of farewell last look back as the rocket leaves Earth.
Two photographers have been chosen to make up an 8-person crew of artists to fly around the moon. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa commissioned the SpaceX mission, which will be the first of its kind.
The crew consists of eight artists from a range of disciplines — an EDM DJ, two photographers, a documentary filmmaker, and a YouTuber, along with other creative professionals.
On 5 October, SpaceX launched the Crew-5 astronaut mission for NASA fromnedy Space Center in Florida. This is the fifth crew rotation mission with astronauts using the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket, and NASA shared some photos and the video of the launch.
The world’s first entirely civilian space mission was launched. Naturally, it’s operated by SpaceX. Dubbed Inspiration4, the four crew members have shared a bunch of images since they went into orbit aboard their Crew Dragon spacecraft, but they haven’t been all that amazing quality. Fortunately, somebody took a DSLR with them, though, and the results are just amazing.
The images were shot through an all-glass dome that offers panoramic views of the Earth and when shooting with a DSLR, the images show the (obviously round) earth with an incredible level of detail from 575 kilometres (357 miles) above the planet’s surface. That’s a little over 160km (or 100 miles) further up than the International Space Station.
In an attempt to enable high-speed internet all over the world, SpaceX has launched 540 Starlink satellites into orbit so far. The planned number is 12,000, but they’re already ruining the party for astronomers and astrophotographers alike. Daniel López recently tried taking a photo of the comet Neowise, but Starlink satellites ruined it completely.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have been controversial since before the first round of them were launched. Having recently launched more, which is going to keep happening for a while, the debates have sparked up again. There are currently 422 of the anticipated 12,000 (with 30,000 more applied for) Starlink satellites floating around our planet, and they’re already upsetting people.
The two main reasons (if we remove all the tinfoil hat conspiracies) are that they will ruin our view of the night sky, which really sucks for astrophotography, and that it will make certain scientific studies all but impossible due to their overpowering brightness relative to the dim lights littered throughout the universe. Elon Musk has now said, though, they’re working on making them dimmer.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have captured a photograph of the aurora australis shot from somewhere over the Indian Ocean, along with a train of 16 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites – a handful of the almost-12,000 they expect to launch over the next few years.
The SpaceX Starlink network of satellites has been a somewhat controversial concept. Its goal is to create a global broadband internet system that allows everybody to have easy access to fast data. From a technological standpoint, it’s pretty amazing. But even if we ignore the tinfoil hat conspiracies, not everybody is pleased with the idea.
Astronomers have been worried about the effect of satellites, as heir increasing number in the orbit is posing a problem for night skies observation. We can’t do anything to remove them – but we can now help monitor the problem. With its new project Satellite Streak Watcher, NASA asks everyone to help to track the population growth of satellites over time. And all you need is a smartphone camera.
The first batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites was launched in May this year, making astronomers worried about how they would affect the night sky. Now that the second batch has been launched, the astronomers’ concerns are becoming a reality.
On Monday 18 November, two astronomers checked the image of their remotely operated telescope in Chile. But instead of a clear night sky, they saw a bunch of light trails from Starlink satellites.
On Tuesday, 6 August, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. After the successful launch, Elon Musk tweeted a video that got even more social media attention than the launch itself. The video shows a SpaceX ship catching the rocket’s fairing as it falls from space, and it’s a perfect catch!
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