The first time I looked at the full moon through a telescope I cried. Now, I’m a big sap and a space nerd, so that’s a bit of an extreme reaction, but seeing the moon up close can elicit some really human feels. It’s easy to take the sight of the moon for granted, but telescopic views of it shift our perspective. It gives one a greater sense of how wild it is that this other world is constantly orbiting our own, that humans have actually walked on it, and that we all occupy such an insignificant part of the universe.Wylie Overstreet, a filmmaker and space buff, and his film partner Alex Gorosh, recently took a telescope into the streets of Los Angeles and fixed it on the moon. As people passed by, Overstreet invited them to look at the moon up close, many of them for the first time in their lives, and captured their experiences on film. Their reactions range from disbelief to joy, and the film captures the good vibes we can emit if we all take a moment to remember we’re just out here together floating on a dumb rock.Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter .
Advertisement