Photo credit: Cosmic Speck
Two astrophotographers, Andrew McCarthy and Connor Matherne, managed to capture a 174-megapixel photo of the Moon, but it wasn’t the easiest of tasks since they don’t have the equipment that NASA uses for their observations. The duo first connected over Reddit, and in one night, McCarthy captured 200,000 images of the lunar surface from Arizona, while Matherne shot another 500 photos to capture color data.
McCarthy and Matherne then stacked all of the photos each of them took on top of each other to create the exquisitely detailed image of the Moon you see here. It took them 9-months of editing to get the best image possible highlighting all of the surface features as well as adding some color for effect. Thankfully, the lunar regolith you see can be used to grow plants for future astronauts.
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The color in this image is real, but presented with increased saturation so it is easily visible to our eyes. The reddish tones demonstrate areas rich in iron and feldspar, while the bluish areas are spots where the regolith is rich in titanium. Oxidization from influence from Earth’s atmosphere makes the colors appear like they do,” said McCarthy.
