'Ridiculously Detailed' New Image of The Moon Is a Masterpiece of Space Photography

This rather stunning picture of our Moon took 2 Astrophotographers nearly two years to complete , Andrew McCarthy and Connor Matherne took over 200,000 images of the Moon on one evening and stacked them together to create this 174-megapixel image of our not so silvery companion.

Though the colors may look false, they are technically the Moon's true hues, only that our eyes are not sensitive enough to see them, and so McCarthy gave the image a saturation boost to bring out the colors in all their glory.

McCarthy's specialty is actually detailed photographs, taking tens of thousands of photos to capture every nook, cranny and crater on the lunar surface. Matherne, a planetary scientist and deep space photographer shooting from Louisiana, is the color buff we also have to thank.

As for how it was made, the masterpiece consists of more than 200,000 images, all taken over the course of a single evening and stacked together.

"The whole thing is assembled like a mosaic, and each tile is made up of thousands of photos," McCarthy told NPR, simplifying what must have been a lengthy editing process.
www.sciencealert.com...

Full image Here

a reply to: gortex

Cool stuff, sometimes if i stare long enough at the moon with my telescope, those long straight lines seem to have a pulsing effect, like someone shining a light inside the moon.

I wonder what causes that effect and what even are those long straight lines.. is the moon just cracked?

haha.. cracked.

All I can say is WOW! Awesome that he put so much effort into bring us this photo!

Thanks for this.

I feel a photoshop session coming on.

a reply to: gortex

Interesting how the southern portion seems to have the bulk of the craters. Wonder if that was one single bombardment or separately through time.

a reply to: gortex

I knew it, it's literally a giant block of cheese. This confirms all of my suspicions. Haha jokes aside that is a masterpiece.

a reply to: gortex

Can anything we (humans) left on the Moon be seen?

Where is the 'Man's' smile?


a reply to: gortex

a reply to: carewemust

I haven't looked that closely but I'd say download the full image and take a look , I suspect that as the image is made up from earthbound telescopes the resolution won't be high enough to make out minute details like that though.

I set it as my screen saver. Im on a 50" monitor. I dont see any stuff we left behind. Ive seen better close ups before that show pipes and walls, and all kinds of strange things on the Lunar surface. I dont think this has the pixels to show that definition.

Awesome post!! That is an incredible picture. Goode bumps !!!a reply to: gortex

originally posted by: KKLOCO
a reply to: gortex

Interesting how the southern portion seems to have the bulk of the craters. Wonder if that was one single bombardment or separately through time.

See any signs of electrical machining?

Craters formed on the edges of other craters for example .... 🧐

Or strings of craters in a line

a reply to: gortex

Looks almost exactly like the moon. Nice job

a reply to: carewemust

Not possible with any terrestrial telescope, but the USA and India have imaged the hardware, and China and Japan the disturbed ground left by the astronauts.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: carewemust

I haven't looked that closely but I'd say download the full image and take a look , I suspect that as the image is made up from earthbound telescopes the resolution won't be high enough to make out minute details like that though.

Thank-you. I asked because this article www.skyatnightmagazine.com... says we can see with a telescope the marking on the Moon where one of our Appolo craft landed.

I thought maybe this ultra high-resolution set of photos might show the "Moon Buggy" or the Lunar Lander.

a reply to: gortex


Thank you. This is a awesome picture

a reply to: carewemust

The wording is a little ambiguous, and it's not the only website that has done it. What they mean by this:

A common question is whether the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon can be seen from Earth. Unfortunately the landing craft are too small to be seen by even the largest Earth-based telescopes, but you can still see the spot where the Lunar Module touched down on 20 July 1969.

is that you can see where it landed, but not the actual precise place.

The nearest we've got (I think) from a terrestrial source is this radar image of the Apollo 15 Hadley Rille site, which is almost at high enough resolution to spot the lander, but not quite.

aui.edu...

originally posted by: kiliker30
a reply to: gortex

I knew it, it's literally a giant block of cheese. This confirms all of my suspicions. Haha jokes aside that is a masterpiece.

And the cheese moon is flat.

a reply to: gortex

It is fantastic! All I want now is for people to realize, people haven't been there and still can't go there now! 😉