Today's soundtrack is the Mars movement from Gustav Holst's Planets.
And here it is, the road to Mars.
The lobby of the SpaceX Starlink factory in Bastrop, Texas. The 'Earth to Mars' orbital transfer ellipse. pic.twitter.com/f1KunMGgA5
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) May 19, 2025
Well, fingers crossed at least. And I can't resist this.
Elon Musk Leaves Job Of Making Government More Efficient For Much Easier Job Of Sending Humans To Mars https://t.co/PBEmTI3L4b pic.twitter.com/Vulw5J6Hxq
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) May 29, 2025
Yeah, it's a good guess that I am excited by this week's Starship test.
Thrilled to share with you my first ever GIGAPIXEL photo of an ascending rocket... something I wasn't sure was even possible!
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) May 29, 2025
Captured using 3 cameras during the moment of liftoff, it was a wonderful challenge to shoot. Available in print for a short time, linked below. pic.twitter.com/JwJ8haCHFK
Andrew has some good shots this time.
Sorry for the delay with the print from yesterday’s launch. Ended up being harder than expected. The photo is over a gigapixel and is frying my computer 😂
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) May 28, 2025
Anyways, here’s GoPro footage I captured in 4k, really wild to watch this wearing headphones pic.twitter.com/5oaOGCWb0o
Don Pettit has some good shots from the ISS, even if they're not actually from this launch.
My two best Starship photos from space station.
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) May 27, 2025
Left shows flight 6 launch over Starbase. Right is the flight 8 exhaust trail and debris field after breakup in orbit. pic.twitter.com/ivqYcfCrjZ
More Don Pettit. He has this home-built tracker that lets him get long exposures of the stars even though he's moving 18,000 miles per hour.
The Milky Way from the vantage of the ISS, with stars as points, rising sun, and cities as yellow streaks below.
— Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) May 25, 2025
Taken with Nikon Z9, Sigma 14mm f1.4 lens, 15 seconds, f1.4, ISO 6400, with homemade orbital sidereal drive to compensate for orbital pitch rate (4 degrees/min) pic.twitter.com/N6duxLJKYs
More photos from space. This is from Anne McClain, and I love her handle.
This is what lightning looks like from the top down, all taken in the Alabama and Georgia regions. @astro_Pettit developed this photo technique, which was further practiced and passed on to me by my crewmate @Astro_Ayers.
— COL Anne McClain (@AstroAnnimal) May 21, 2025
The photos are taken at 120 frames per second, and the… pic.twitter.com/HVbVT0OQNY
Forbes recently did an article on my amazing crewmate Nichole Ayers, and this unique type of photography. Check it out!https://t.co/DDdChTlZ8R
— COL Anne McClain (@AstroAnnimal) May 21, 2025
As long as we're looking for excitement in the sky, there's always the chance this will show up Real Soon Now.
The night sky after Betelgeuse goes supernova! pic.twitter.com/c3Np24NeyS
— Curiosity (@MAstronomers) May 28, 2025
The Horsehead Nebula has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. That's actually a dark nebula around a star-forming region about three light years across. So watch this space.
The Horsehead Nebula 🐴 pic.twitter.com/FbEoXVCPbx
— Space 8K (@uhd2020) April 29, 2024
Same place, different filters.
IC434 Horsehead and flame nebula in Orion by 📷 cosmonautroger pic.twitter.com/VheYq4xccc
— Julio Maiz (@maiz_julio) May 9, 2025
More from the JWST. A lot of this is being gathered by gravitational lensing from a galaxy in the foreground.
In Webb’s new deep field are galaxies that may have existed as early as 200 million years after the big bang! This long exposure to a small area of sky totals 120 hours of observing time and is Webb’s deepest look back on a single target to date! https://t.co/uE3XSMYcOf pic.twitter.com/GheuVzmpvD
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) May 27, 2025
But you can get great pictures from your backyard, too.
My most detailed photo of a nebula is nearly complete. I'll likely release it in print sometime in June.
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) May 19, 2025
This is a small excerpt from it. This was entirely captured from my suburban backyard, using modest consumer equipment.
I can't emphasize enough how accessible this is. pic.twitter.com/HlQg7MaSda
Or from an Air Portugal flight.
Beautiful northern lights filmed by Air Portugal pilots on a night flight between San Francisco to Lisbon.
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 30, 2025
[📹bestairplaneseat]pic.twitter.com/hzx1liKVI8
Yeah, late again. I went out to dinner last night and had two, count'em two, glasses of beer, and I woke up with a hangover, I swear. This age thing.
But I'll be back next week with more Sky Candy, and I've had my one excursion for the month, so I should be awake and capable.
Also, The Stars Our Destination will have a review of a paper on magnetic sails for interplanetary — and interstellar — travel, and Elon Musk's delayed presentation on making life multiplanetary.
As always, I love comments, and I love it when you share Sky Candy with your friends.
