NASA’s Artemis II mission brought humans the farthest they have ever been from Earth.
Amateur astronomer Tom Wildoner said he was amazed by the images.
“Absolutely incredible,” the Carbon County resident said. “The Earthset behind the moon, that’s my new desktop image.”
The four-person crew saw the moon and Earth at the same time, and a side of the moon never seen before.
The mission was research-focused, testing NASA’s newest spacecraft and bringing humans one step closer to reaching Mars.
The founding members of the Wilkes-Barre Astronomy Club hope this week's event will inspire more to learn about a topic with a lot still left to discover.
A niche hobby
Wildoner has four telescopes and a personal observatory in his backyard in Packer Township.
His photos from the Dark Side Observatory have been published by magazines and other outlets including the Washington Post.
He uses a digital telescope, meaning he doesn’t look through an eyepiece. He sets it up for imaging with an app on his phone.
“Type in Venus … It will slew the telescope and point it to Venus,” he said. “It’s got USB ports right here, you put a thumb drive in it and it saves the images right on the thumb drive. You take it into the house, pull them up and process them.”
Wildoner first took up the hobby in the 1970s.
“I did my own processing, my own film, and then I got out of it for a while,” he said. “When I got back into it in 2010, everything was digital. So I had to learn it all from scratch.”
The hobbyist has learned a lot about space exploration and astrophotography over the years.
“Every time I come out I learn something new," he said. "I either learn something about image processing, I learn something about the science behind it, I image a new galaxy I didn’t know anything about.”
He shares that knowledge with others as a member of the Wilkes-Barre Astronomy Club.
Wilkes-Barre Astronomy Club
Jon Belanger established the club last year.
“It's something I've been thinking about for a very long time,” he said. “I really love just being able to show people stuff in a telescope.”
Belanger is the Friedman observatory assistant at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, which is open to the public on Friday evenings when skies are clear.
He says he noticed a need for a club in between the existing Lackawanna Astronomical Society and the Greater Hazleton Area Astronomical Society.
“I want it to be a resource for the community, where anyone can feel they can come out, regardless of technical background or experience or anything,” he said. “We're a welcoming group of people.”
The plan is to host free community events and work with local schools, nonprofits and other groups.
“We’re trying to build interest,” said Wildoner. “Especially getting young kids involved in it early.”
The organization will host star parties, where group members set up telescopes in a field and invite the public to come and observe.
“Everybody picks a different target. People come out and they go from telescope to telescope,” Wildoner said. “We’ll have a slide presentation, we’re working on something for kids for the next one with some wooden balls and a spotlight to show how the phases of the moon change.”
The Wilkes-Barre Astronomy Club’s next star party is May 16 at Francis E. Walter Dam in White Haven. The organization plans to host one every month throughout the summer.
“[Space] is our last place to really explore. And really all you need to do is buy a telescope and point it,” Belanger said. “There's always this wow factor. I really enjoy doing that, and in doing that, I also learn a lot myself.”
