ARTEMIS II’s Orion spacecraft, an incredible image for a record setting mission – 7 April 2026
The Virtual Telescope Project has imaged the Orion spacecraft “Integrity” of ARTEMIS II, carrying the first crew en route to the Moon in 53 years, near its maximum, record setting distance from Earth.
The ARTEMISS II’s Orion “Integrity” spacecraft at its maximum distance from the Earth. 7 April 2026.
Incredible, yet true.
With my eyes still filled with the extraordinary images captured in recent hours by the astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft of ARTEMIS II during their lunar flyby and with my heart stirred by the emotion of such a remarkable achievement, in the very early hours of today I attempted a ground-based observation of that capsule using the instruments of the Virtual Telescope Project, installed in Manciano (Grosseto, Italy), beneath the darkest skies of the Italian peninsula.
The challenge was formidable. The target was an object with linear dimensions on the order of 10 meters, located more than 400,000 km from Earth. Yet, that was not the main difficulty.
The real challenge arose from the fact that Orion had to be detected less than two degrees away from the dazzling disk of an almost full Moon. All of this with the target positioned low above the horizon, at an altitude of less than 20 degrees.
I chose to employ the 14-inch aperture instrument, which in the past has consistently proven effective in this type of extreme observation.
After determining the pointing coordinates using data provided by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I directed the telescope toward the expected position, configuring it to track Orion’s motion across the sky.
Having acquired a series of images, I combined them to maximize the collected signal, while remaining rather pessimistic about the chances of success due to the extremely bright sky background caused by the Moon.
When the final image was obtained and optimized as much as possible for display, I could scarcely believe what appeared on the computer screen: Orion was visible exactly at the predicted position as a faint point of light against a truly dazzling sky background.
I could barely suppress a cry of joy, given the unlikely hour and instead savored in silence the unique emotion of contemplating a modest cluster of pixels, within which were four astronauts who had just made history, reaching a distance from Earth never achieved before: approximately 413,000 km from the planet’s center.
I had captured Orion about two and a half hours after that fateful moment, when it was slightly closer to us, at a distance of 411,000 km.
At the beginning of this post is the image in question, while below we see one showing the Moon at that same moment. Moments that become eternal.
The Moon, imaged while ARTEMIS II’s Orion spacecraft was at its maximum, record setting distance from the Earth. 7 Apr. 2027.
An unforgettable night, in which a seemingly insignificant point of light—yet of extraordinary significance—has carried humanity to new heights, opening inspiring horizons for us all. May they prove beneficial to everyone.
Gianluca Masi
Virtual Telescope Project
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