Spot NASA's Artemis 1 Orion on its way to the moon in a free livestream tonight (Nov. 16)

Tonight you may be able to see a telescope's view of NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spaceship, which is on a first-of-its-kind test flight to the moon.

Today, at 1:45 a.m., the spaceship was launched into the sky. It was from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida that the first Space Launch System mega rocket was built. The rocket's upper stage fired its engine a few hours later to send the Artemis 1 capsule around the moon. Tonight's live online event comes in.

Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Ceccano, Italy, will attempt to stream live telescope views of Orion online in a livestream event scheduled for 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 Nov. 17 GMT). You can watch it free in the window above or directly from the Virtual Telescope Project website (opens in new tab).

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The launch of Artemis 1 is more than just a trip to the moon. It is the beginning of a new era. "Because of the historic significance of this event, we decided to try something never done before: we will share live images, online, of the Orion spaceship on its way to the moon after its launch."

The Virtual Telescope Project may not be able to spot the spaceship. Masi needs the weather in Italy to cooperate, then he needs to spot the small, fast moving target with his telescope.

Masi wrote "We will do our best to show you the Artemis 1 capsule on its way to the moon as soon as it will be visible from Italy." The launch and trajectory data provided by the JPL will be imported into our robotic telescopes to track this extremely demanding target at our best.

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