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SpaceX rocket booster will hit the moon on Wednesday (badastronomy.beehiiv.com)

submitted 2 days ago by CombatWombat@feddit.online to c/astronomy@mander.xyz

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The impact flash might — might — be visible to telescopes on Earth

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[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 8 points 1 day ago

I don't have the setup but if you do, they have a way to share your data with scientists

As I wrote in BAN Issue #1042, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket is going to hit the moon next week, on August 5, 2026. The impact time is predicted to be 06:34:33 UTC (02:34:33 Eastern US time). The upper stage will impact near the crater Einstein in the northwest portion of the moon, which, unfortunately, will be lit by the sun at the time. That will make seeing any impact flash difficult.

But not impossible! A paper has come out detailing the event, and the plans to observe it. It’s not likely to be visible by amateur telescopes, but hey, “amateurs” have pretty sophisticated equipment these days, so I would encourage anyone with a good setup and some experience give it a try. You’ll need to take video — the flash will be very brief, so capturing it during a short image exposure of the sunlit moon is extremely unlikely. The paper also talks about how to share data if you get any.