Light side of the Moon in clearest image yet
A photographer has taken the clearest picture yet of the Moon’s craters by combining its phases into one remarkable image.
Normally lighting means only a few can be seen but astrophotographer Andrew Mccarthy stacked thousands of pictures together over Moon phases to show it off in all its glory.
Posting to Instagram, Californian-based Mr Mccarthy described the image, titled All Terminator, as an “impossible scene”.
Mr Mccarthy said: “From two weeks of images of the waxing Moon, I took the section of the picture that has the most contrast (right before the lunar terminator where shadows are the longest), aligned and blended them to show the rich texture across the entire surface.
“This was exhausting to say the least, namely because the moon doesn’t line up day over day.
“So each image had to be mapped to a 3D sphere and adjusted to make sure each image aligned.
“I may or may not try this again for the waning phases depending on feedback.”
The lunar terminator is the line between light and dark side of the Moon.
The sun is closer to the horizon in the terminator, creating long shadows which give the surface a threedimensional appearance.
These shadows make the Moon’s surface clearer and features like craters more discernible.
This is similar to the line of light and dark on Earth, making shadows lengthen when the sun gets low in the sky.
But unlike the Moon’s welldefined terminators, the ones on Earth appear fuzzy and diffused – leading to dawn and dusk – which is due to the differences in atmosphere.
The original shots were taken using an ASI1600MM and an edgehd 800.
More of Mr Mrcarthy’s work is on Instagram at @ cosmic_background.