In August 2025, astrophotographer Rod Prazeres received a strange Instagram message that seemed a little too good to be true — a "small production company" wanted to license his images for use in an undisclosed sci-fi movie.
Prazeres' initially — and reasonably — assumed that he was being scammed. After all, how many production companies and movie studios approach collaborators by sliding into their DMs and asking for space pics? Several months and a binding non-disclosure agreement later, his images would appear on the silver screen as a magnificent backdrop for the credits of Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling-fronted adaptation of Andy Weir's beloved novel of the same name.
