{"id":369242,"date":"2026-04-01T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/369242\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T11:00:14","slug":"these-astronomers-are-tracking-artemis-iis-journey-to-the-moon-and-theyre-live-streaming-for-the-whole-world-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/369242\/","title":{"rendered":"These astronomers are tracking Artemis II’s journey to the Moon, and they’re live-streaming for the whole world to see"},"content":{"rendered":"

As NASA prepares to launch the Artemis II mission to the Moon this week \u2013\u00a0potentially as early as April 1st, 2026 \u2013 many of us will be wishing we could be there at Kennedy Space Center to watch lift-off live.<\/p>\n

We’ve seen multiple posts on forums asking whether Artemis II will be visible around the world through back-garden telescopes.<\/p>\n

\"PhotographersCredit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/p>\n

The answer is that, while technically Artemis II would be visible temporarily in the sky after launch, by the time it gets to the Moon, the Orion capsule’s apparent size will be much too tiny to see.<\/p>\n

Enter the Virtual Telescope Project, a team of amateur astronomers \u2013 ‘amateur’ in the loosest possible definition \u2013\u00a0who plan to track Artemis II with their enormous telescopic set-up and broadcast their livestream to the world.<\/p>\n

The Virtual Telescope Project’s live tracking of the Artemis II mission<\/p>\n

Anyone with a keen interest in space and astronomy will likely have heard of the Virtual Telescope Project<\/a> before.<\/p>\n

They’re headed by founder Gianluca Masi and are based at Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy.<\/p>\n

The team have several robotic telescopes that are remotely accessible across the world via internet connection, and they often livestream astronomical events like meteor showers and eclipses to the world, for free.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the Virtual Telescope Project showed live views of the interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ImageImage of comet 3I\/ATLAS captured by the Gianluca Masi for the Virtual Telescope Project, Manciano, Italy 11 November 2025, 04:31 UTC. Equipment: Moravian C3-61000EC Mono CMOS camera, ARTEC 250 f\/4.5 astrograph, Software Bisque Paramount<\/p>\n

But this week, they’re planning to turn their telescopes to the launch of Artemis II and track the Orion capsule on its journey to the Moon and back.<\/p>\n

Artemis II is the first crewed mission in NASA’s Artemis programme, and will see four astronauts take a 10-day trip around the Moon.<\/p>\n

It could launch as early as 18:24 EDT (22:24 UTC) on April 1st, 2026.<\/p>\n

We got the chance to ask Gianluca about the Artemis II tracking project, how they’ll do it and what we can expect to see.<\/p>\n

\"GianlucaGianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project 2.0, which will be tracking and live-streaming the Artemis II mission in real time
\nHow will you know where Artemis II is from your location?<\/p>\n

I start from the ephemerides generated via NASA’s Horizons System<\/a>, which anyone can access and which is always very reliable.<\/p>\n

The Artemis II orbit is part of their database, so observers can use it to see where to look for the spacecraft from their locations.<\/p>\n

What equipment will you use to track Artemis II?<\/p>\n

Our goal is to capture tracked images of Artemis II. So, after locating the spacecraft and pointing our telescope at it, our robotic system will be able to carefully track it.<\/p>\n

For this, our 10-inch astrograph telescope is mounted on a Software Bisque Paramount ME high-end mount.<\/p>\n

That’s able to track at virtually any rate, thanks to an advanced feature in its SkyX Pro software.<\/p>\n

We’ve used it many times, particularly with asteroids making very close approaches to Earth, and it always works to perfection.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Virtual Telescope Project tracked the BepiColombo spacecraft’s flyby of Earth on 10 April 2020
\nWhat you expect to be able to capture? What will we see?<\/p>\n

Likely, we will see the Artemis II Orion capsule and ICPS \u2013 the rocket’s upper stage \u2013 as a dot of light, quickly moving against the streaks left by the stars on the background.<\/p>\n

We will track focussed on the spacecraft, so distant background stars will look like long trails. It will be thrilling!<\/p>\n

We always stream in real-time from the telescope we use to try to capture the target of interest.<\/p>\n

So if you watch our livestream, it’ll be like you’re sitting in front of our computer in the control room with us.<\/p>\n

We love sharing the experience, even the backstage tweaks like slewing the telescope, refining the pointing and so on, not just the final result.<\/p>\n

Have you done anything like this before?<\/p>\n

Yes, we did something even more extreme in the past. I remember the very demanding re-entry in our atmosphere of a large Long March 5 rocket body in May 2021 and the European Space Agency’s BepiColombo spacecraft flyby in April 2020.<\/p>\n

In both cases we captured great images.<\/p>\n

In 2022 we tried to track Artemis I soon after launch, but the weather did not cooperate. However, we were able to capture it later on in the mission.<\/p>\n

\"AA view of the Artemis I spacecraft captured by the Virtual Telescope Project, 8 December 2022. Background stars appear as trails because the telescope was focussed on tracking Artemis I across the sky. Equipment: SBIG STL-6303E CCD camera, PlaneWave 17-inch telescope, Paramount ME mount
\nWhat about Artemis II launch day? Are you excited\/worried?<\/p>\n

Oh, we are very excited! Of course, we might not be able to manage it for a few reasons.<\/p>\n

Mainly the weather, but also because it is a very demanding task, with such a short time window to try and track it (about 1 hour).<\/p>\n

The target will be low \u2013 about 15 degrees \u2013 on the southwest horizon, so the sky needs be clear. But we will try!<\/p>\n

Our telescopes are in the town of Manciano, Central Italy, so let’s hope weather will be fine.<\/p>\n

We’re very excited to see Artemis II lift-off and begin a new adventure in space.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on Artemis II? Let us know by emailing contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As NASA prepares to launch the Artemis II mission to the Moon this week \u2013\u00a0potentially as early as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,141],"class_list":{"0":"post-369242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}