Artemis II Astronaut Shares Behind-the-Scenes Footage From Iconic Earthset Photo

Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, right, looks out the Orion spacecraft window during the Artemis II lunar flyby on April 6, the same day the Earthset photo, left, was captured.

The Artemis II mission commander has shared spellbinding footage showing the moment the crew witnessed the Earth setting behind the Moon — while they captured spectacular photos of it.

Reid Wiseman shared the scintillating video on his social media channels yesterday. Filmed on his iPhone, it gives a raw, intimate look at what it was like inside the Orion capsule as the four astronauts experienced a view that just a handful of human beings have ever seen before.

The video is particularly relatable, because, as Wiseman explains, he just grabbed his iPhone and wanted to film the moment — likening it to watching a “sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos.”

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

As emotion courses through his veins, Wiseman can be heard saying: “Would you look at that, man. Wow… Dude, no way.” It’s a truly magical moment that lasts for less than a minute as the planet that we call home slips behind the lunar horizon.

For the duration of the video, the shutter sound of Christina Koch’s Nikon D5 SLR camera can be heard hammering away. Wiseman explains she is shooting three-shot brackets on a 400mm lens, while he was watching.

“I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window, but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view,” he says. “[The video] is uncropped, uncut with 8x zoom, which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye. Enjoy.”

As of writing, the awe-inspiring video has already clocked up 10.8 million views on Instagram and 8 million views on X. “Absolutely incredible. Thank you for capturing this,” writes astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy.

Parallels with the Past

Arguably, the most famous photograph taken during the Apollo program of the 1960s was Bill Anders’ Earthrise. Similar to Artemis II, there is also audio of Frank Borman, James Lovell, and Anders as the Earth looms into view. It’s a real joy to listen to, see below.

Apollo 8’s iconic ‘Earthrise’ photo | Credit: NASA / Bill Anders

Unlike Koch on Orion, whose photos are being saved on a memory card, the Apollo 8 astronauts had to worry about which film they were using and getting the settings correct on the Hasselblad 500 EL camera. But despite the changes in photographic technology, the sense of wonder that both crews felt as they witnessed the glowing orb of planet Earth is palpable.

Image credits: NASA