Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Earth From the Perspective of Artemis II.jpg

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Earth From the Perspective of Artemis II
  •  Comment -- @GumballNine1Nine: This is not, in fact, a "fully illuminated Earth". It is a photo of the Earth's night side. The illumination in the shot comes from the Moon, not the Sun (which was behind the Earth at this time). I believe the oppose votes have in part be influenced by the wrong assumption that this photo was taken in daylight. Renerpho (talk) 23:45, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
    Sorry for the mistake, I've corrected the info. GumballNine1Nine (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support -- GumballNine1Nine (talk) 16:55, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
     Support GioviPen GP msg 17:13, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support Inter-rede (talk) 17:53, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Oppose We have already seventeen promotted pictures in the Category:Featured pictures of Earth from space, among them some are far much better, this one is very noisy and not that sharp.--Jebulon (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
    •  Comment Jebulon, as others have noted (and also the updated info), this is not only a visually unique image of the Earth, but also historical which sets this image apart from the other pictures in that category GumballNine1Nine (talk) 16:50, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support Unique in that this is the night side of the Earth with the sun eclipsed: stars are visible in the background, as well as city lights and aurorae (and maybe some zodiacal light?). Perhaps there will be a better image available soon, but I'd guess we can just delist this one and replace it. —brainandforce [yap] 22:08, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support for historicity, as per B&F. JayCubby (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Terrible quality. Alvesgaspar (talk) 23:32, 3 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Comment File:Artemis II Captures the Terminator Line (art002e000190).jpg is of better quality (but different composition) and from the same source. ★ 05:15, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
     Comment That's the bright side of the Earth though, so it is expected that the image is less noisy. dllu (talk) 06:07, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
    @ArionStar: That image is a lot less interesting. In fact, it's just like any other view of a half-illuminated Earth (unlike the shot in the image which shows the Earth in moonlight). Renerpho (talk) 23:50, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support Historical and newsworthy capture. As mentioned by several commenters above, the reason why this was shot at 1/4 s and ISO 51200 is because it is the dark (night) side of the Earth. None of the other photos in Category:Featured pictures of Earth from space have this property apart from some satellite photos that were scanned with specialized cameras. dllu (talk) 06:02, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Oppose. I'm not convinced about the quality. Is it really the best possible version of this Nikon D5–taken photograph? It was created literally yesterday, I'm sure we can wait a few days until we figure this out. Yacàwotçã (talk) 06:57, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Too soon. Please wait for some time. NASA may already have better images from Artemis II than this poor copy. And they will certainly have. Yann (talk) 09:13, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Not yet. Not until a higher quality version comes out. TheBritinator (talk) 14:45, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support The oppose votes don't take into account that this is a long exposure of the Earth's night side, illuminated by the Moon rather than the Sun (compare File:Artemis II Captures Dark Side of the Earth.jpg for a shorter exposure of the same scene). The "terrible quality" is in comparison to a different kind of photo, and is really comparing apples to oranges. We have never seen an image of Earth quite like this; for example, it is one of the few images that have an exposure time long enough to see stars. The Apollo missions never got a chance to take a photo like this, because they had to launch towards the new Moon (with the fully illuminated Earth behind them). There's so much going on (from city lights on the ground over the planet Venus to the zodiacal light, aurora over the north and south pole, etc.) that makes this a very unusual photo. There will be no higher quality version of this; there was one chance to take that photo, hand-held, with the highest ISO setting and longest exposure time the photographer could manage. NASA talked about the eclipse in the build-up to the launch, and this geometry is unlikely to be repeated in upcoming Artemis launches. In short, I support as a unique photograph. Renerpho (talk) 23:45, 4 April 2026 (UTC)
    There's also a disturbing reflection/lens flare in the middle of the image (see the note). ★ 00:01, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
    @ArionStar: It looks like a reflection to me (something inside the capsule, being reflected in the window). I agree that it's a bit distracting, but again, it's the best that is possible for this kind of shot. We should always ask for images of a reasonably good quality, but I argue that this image meets that criterion -- with all the artifacts it has. Renerpho (talk) 00:06, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
    The off-center crop doesn't help… ★ 01:18, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
    It's not an off-center crop. It's cropped just so that Venus and the zodiacal light aren't cut off. Renerpho (talk) 14:10, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
    @ArionStar by nitpicking about the reflection and the off-center crop, you're missing the point that Renerpho is making, which is that this is a unique and irreplaceable photo of historical significance despite its technical flaws. We can all see that the photo is grainy and has reflections and other imperfections. But given the extraordinary circumstances, some of us believe that it should be featured, in accordance with the FPC guidelines which states that "Hence, a work of poor quality depicting a contemporaneous historical event can be nonetheless important, even if the artistic merit is relatively low." dllu (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
    This is probably a high compressed version sent across space. Let's wait for the astronauts coming back home, we will have a better copy. Yann (talk) 13:43, 6 April 2026 (UTC)
    @Yann: If I read the EXIF data here correctly then the photo was created as a JPG file; and what was later processed on the ground in Lightroom was the original JPG as created by the camera. There really is no bandwidth limitation so close to Earth that would have prevented them from sending it "as is". Renerpho (talk) 14:28, 6 April 2026 (UTC)
    This means NASA uses out-of-camera JPEG files? OMG, no wonder that the quality is rather poor. If there is no bandwidth limitation, the first thing they must do is to set the camera to use the raw image file format and to send the raw files. There is much, much, much more latitude for editing when you use the raw image file format instead of JPEG, and when it comes to a photo of the night side of the Earth, “illuminated by moonlight of the full Moon”, you need as much latitude for editing as you can get. – Aristeas (talk) 07:09, 7 April 2026 (UTC)
     Oppose Using OOC JPEG images in such a historical situation is incredibly sloppy. – Aristeas (talk) 07:09, 7 April 2026 (UTC)
    Someone should try to confirm if I read the EXIF data correctly before votes are being based on that. Renerpho (talk) 07:13, 7 April 2026 (UTC)
     Oppose I looked at the Exif data and yes, they seem to indicate an OOC JPEG file, and the file itself looks very much like an edited OOC JPEG file, too. However you are right that it is problematic to base voting on unclear facts. Let’s keep things simple. Sorry, the image quality clearly is not on the level we have often seen from NASA and would expect from NASA in 2026. I absolutely respect if somebody says historicity outweighs quality issues, but sorry, I beg to differ, I don’t see this in this case. – Aristeas (talk) 18:31, 7 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Support for historicity. This is not a trivial photo! --heylenny (talk/edits) 19:32, 5 April 2026 (UTC)
    Random fact: one of the visible light spots is Vitória, Espírito Santo (my home state). ★ 15:34, 8 April 2026 (UTC)
  •  Oppose premature nomination. --Milseburg (talk) 13:33, 9 April 2026 (UTC)
    I agree. I think this should be renominated in the future once more time has passed. UnpetitproleX (Talk) 05:11, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Category:April 2026 featured picture candidates Category:2026 unsuccessful candidates for featured picture status Category:2026 featured picture candidates of astronomy
Category:2026 featured picture candidates of astronomy Category:2026 unsuccessful candidates for featured picture status Category:April 2026 featured picture candidates