A crack at the Carina Nebula & Questioning Artemis II
Astrophotograph-ing
Last night was the first clear night in about a week in Marlborough, New Zealand. So I hopped onto the lawn with my DSLR and my EF 75-300mm II lens (zoomed in to ~80mm from what I remember) and took a crack and photographing the Carina Nebula. This is what I ended up with:
It's something like 12-13 minutes of exposure time. I had to stop because the lens was fogging up. If I wasn't travelling, I'd have access too a lens heater and a star tracker mount, but alas, that would have put my luggage waaayyy over the weight limit. I'm quite happy with this image; there's structure there that can been seen and identified, most notably the Keyhole Nebula.
It's far off from a more professional image, but the wonder is in the process and the appreciation of what's out there; what's able to be photographed by an amateur on a lawn for hardly any cost (no buying of telescopes or any other equipment that wouldn't feel at home in your average photographer's bag).
This nebula is home to the famous "cosmic cliffs" JWST photo, by the way.
Artemis II
Above image sourced from the Public Domain Image Archive / Internet Archive / Joseph Sablé Centre
This morning I watched the Artemis II mission launch. While it's always cool to see a massive rocket launch, I just can't help but think that the ~$90B cost could have been spent on more practical issues closer to home. I'm not a space enthusiast and I'll be lying if I say I've been following along with much recent space news and mission plans, but it feels to me as though it's all just a big PR stunt, with NASA trying to reignite the excitement and patriotic respect it garnered in its early days.
If "the innate human drive to explore the unknown" is the reason, then go build a submarine.
As per NASA's Artemis II Press Kit:
Artemis missions will allow astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and help build momentum for the first crewed missions to Mars.
To this, my thoughts are:
Scientific discovery on extraterrestrial bodies is done better by robots and probes. They last longer, work harder, scoff at the thought of needing life support, and don't need to come back to earth at the end of it all. With the Artemis budget, I'm sure you could send a lot of probes.
The economic benefits (I presume this alludes to mining) will be easier to investigate by robots. They'll also likely be better able exploit any resources if found. Bots can sustain themselves on sunlight and don't need air filtration to prevent them from getting black lung.
"To build momentum for the first crewed mission to Mars" - WHY do we want to send people to Mars??! What benefit will that bring at all? Again, I'm sure the money can be much better spent down here on earth where all the problems that need solving are.
I enjoyed reading what Maciej Cegłowsk wrote about the whole going to Mars idea, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he's saying.
Anyways, still cool to see the rocket launch, and subsequently not blow up. It also makes me feel better to know I'm not an American tax payer caught up in some solvable socioeconomic problem just calling out for the right funding.