FYI, until we have some sort of continuous human presence on the moon, spacecraft crashing into it is extremely beneficial for science and not harmful whatsoever. Derelict spacecraft gouging a small crater in a sterile planetary body is a non-issue. It’s also been happening for decades, but I see this story being spun as a negative simply because SpaceX is attached to it. While this isn’t intentional, it was always a potential outcome of where this upper stage was left after successful delivering its mission payloads (2 lunar landers). This was the most efficient way to execute that mission. I’ve seen crazy claims such as this affecting tides on Earth or knocking the moon off its orbit. Absolute nonsense. The moon is the size of a small planet, and the worst that will happen is a crater a bit larger than a backyard swimming pool will be created. We do far worse things to our own planet on a daily basis. There will be many more of these events until circumstances (human lunar presence) require preventing it.

Current view through my 17" telescope. This is a single raw 10 minute exposure. It's monochrome because this is just one of 3 color channels. The color is split up into separate exposures to maximize efficiency and light gathering power! After several hundred of these photos captured over many nights, I'll combine them all and have a stunning, colorful photo to share with you!

I’ve been doing a terrible job promoting it thanks to this starship flight hogging my attention, but I have a pretty big deep sky project I’m finally sharing later this week! As always email subscribers see it early :)

If you like this sort of thing and want to help fund my launch/astrophotography, consider picking up the fine art print I made from this launch! The prints are numbered editions on premium paper/mountings. Get one here for the next few days only:

I left a video camera WAY too close to the launchpad. My first time capturing a launch in high resolution video. Definitely exceeded my expectations! This was captured at 120fps, interpolated 2x, stabilized, and played back at 30fps.

Forgive me if today's email is a bit long-winded. A lot went into getting this shot, and I really wanted to tell the story! Check your inboxes in the next hour or so for the story of how I captured "Piercing the Heavens"

Don't let Starship's 13th flight test distract you from the fact that in 11 days I'll be revealing my first deep sky photo captured entirely with my largest telescope that took a year to bring online. This project was a massive undertaking and I can't wait to share it with you!