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A photographer has taken the clearest images in the world of moon craters by combining multiple shots of the lunar line where light meets darkness.
California-based astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy stacked thousands of images together in lunar phases to show the moon’s surface in all its glory.
The lunar enthusiast took two weeks to mark the crescent moon, as the amount of illuminated surface seen from Earth increases.
Due to a quirk of light caused by the ‘lunar terminator’, the line between the light and dark sides of the moon, features such as craters are elongated.
In a painstaking process, McCarthy took photos of the lunar surface where the effect is most pronounced and combined them into a detailed composite.
Usually only a few can be seen, but astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy stacked thousands of images together during the phases of the moon to show them in all their glory
A composite image of the moon made up of thousands of images taken at different phases of the moon to capture every detail of the craters
The spectacular end result reveals a dazzling array of craters, dimples, and blemishes in Earth’s 4.5 billion-year-old neighbor.
Posting on his Instagram account, McCarthy described the plugin, titled ‘All Terminator’, as a ‘beast of a project’.
“This moon may seem a little fun to you, and that’s because it’s an impossible scene,” he said on his account, @cosmic_background.
Posting on Instagram, California-based McCarthy described the plugin, titled All Terminator, as an “impossible scene.”
“ From two weeks of crescent moon images, I took the section of the image that has the highest contrast (just before the lunar terminator where the shadows are longest), aligned and blended them to show the rich texture across the entire surface , ‘ he said.
“ This was exhausting, to say the least, mainly because the moon doesn’t align day after day, so each image had to be assigned to a 3D sphere and adjusted to make sure that each image is aligned.
McCarthy, who took the original photos using an ASI1600MM and the Celestron edgeHD 800, could repeat the process for the opposite phase of the moon.
“I may or may not try this again for the decline phases depending on the comments,” he said.
A composite image of the moon made up of thousands of images taken at different phases of the moon to capture every detail of the craters
“I always wondered what the moon would be like using only terminator images,” replied ethan_roberts_astronomer02. ‘Very interesting result’.
The lunar terminator or ‘twilight zone’ is the line between the light side and the dark side of the moon.
The sun is closer to the horizon at the terminator, creating long shadows that give the surface a three-dimensional appearance.
Posting on Instagram, California-based McCarthy described the plugin, titled All Terminator, as an “impossible scene.” The original photos were taken with an ASI1600MM and an edgeHD 800 (pictured)
These shadows brighten the moon’s surface and make the crater-like features more noticeable.
According to NASA, many craters appear near the terminator because their height makes them easier to discern there.
This is like the line of light and dark on Earth, causing shadows to lengthen when the sun is low in the sky.
But unlike the well-defined terminators on the Moon, those on Earth seem fuzzy and fuzzy, leading to sunrise and sunset, which is due to differences in the atmosphere.
Posting on social media, McCarthy told his followers, “This moon might seem a little funny to you.”
“Sunlight bounces off every microscopic gas molecule on the way to us, scattering in the process,” says the Old Farmers Almanac.
“It is this scattering of sunlight that allows us to see some of that light before sunrise and after sunset each day.
“The Moon has no atmosphere, so sunlight hits its surface unhindered.”
