New Delhi: NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman has shared an image of the Earthset on the Moon, as seen by the Artemis II Crew during their historic lunar flyby mission. As the Artemis II crew came to close to passing behind the Moon from the vantage point of Earth, the witnessed a crescent Earth setting over a crescent Moon. The edge of the visible surface of the Moon is described as a ‘lunar limb’. The exposed part of the Earth, visible in the image are swirling clouds over Oceania and Australia. In the foreground, the Ohm crater is visible on the lunar surface.
Only one chance in this lifetime…
Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset. You can hear the shutter on the Nikon as @Astro_Christina is hammering away on 3-shot brackets and capturing those… pic.twitter.com/8aWnaFJ69c
— Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) April 19, 2026
Reid Wiseman was the Commander of the Artemis II mission. The other crew members consisted of Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. There are four windows on board the brand new Orion spaceship, that the crew dubbed ‘Integrity‘, two of which were used by the astronauts to observe the Moon during the flyby. The video was captured from the fifth docking hatch window. The video includes audio as well, and Koch can be heard capturing multiple photos rapidly during the Earthset as seen from the far side of the Moon. Shortly after capturing these images, the crew entered into a planned communications blackout.
More iPhone images expected
The NASA astronauts were equipped with Nikon D5 and Nikon Z9 cameras, as well as iPhone 17 Pro Max units. While NASA has released a number of images captured by the cameras, this video is among the few external shots captured from an iPhone during the mission. Most of the other images captured from the iPhone released by NASA so far are of the crew themselves within the Artemis II spaceship. More images captured during the lunar flyby during the course of the mission are expected to be released in the future, including one of the Hertzsprung crater captured by Wiseman and shown on the livestream of the mission.