Observation by Nigel Evans: Blue and Gold

Uploaded by

Nigel Evans

Observer

Nigel Evans

Observed

2026 Nov 13 - 01:01

Uploaded

2026 Nov 13 - 13:22

Objects

Spacecraft

Equipment

200mm EdgeHD +ASI6200

Exposure

106*60sec

Location

Ipswich

Target name

ESCAPADE Blue and Gold

Title

Blue and Gold

About this image

NASA's ESCAPADE mission to Mars was launched in November 2025. The two spacecraft Blue and Gold have been loitering around the Sun's L2 point waiting for the Mars transfer window to open. Blue executed an Earth Gravity Assist on Nov 7, followed by Gold 2 days later. To us these two interplanetary spacecraft appear very close together in the sky - a rare situation.

Early on 13 Nov 2026 I had an opportunity to capture them

Top Left - a straight stack. Blue is visible in single frames, measuring mag 16.2. Gold is invisible

Top Right - addmax of the above. Blue is again visible, with Gold appearing as the faintest of trails that would easily pass for hot pixels!

Botton Left - Aligned on Blue at a range of 1652k km

Botton Right - Aligned on Gold at mag 18.3 but closer at only 1017k km. Within this frame the brighter Blue appears as a shortened arc.

These are both flying away at 300k km a day. It is not often you get to see two spacecraft 600k km apart, but appearing only a few arc minutes apart in the sky!

Files associated with this observation

261113 Blue&Gold NSE.jpg (2.8 MB)

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Callum Potter, Martin Mobberley

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