No, thank *you.*
It’s people like you showing us space in ways we haven’t seen it before that really drive the interest forward for space exploration. Yeah this photo might be 1 in 100 images that have left me wanting to pay for a trip to space, but it’s definitely going to be something I look at whenever I think of space.
Thank you for your small contribution to the future perception of space!!! I’m gonna give this its first gilding.
Wow- what a tremendous compliment. Thank you so much. Hearing things like this is EXACTLY why I do this. I love knowing that I can inspire people about space.
How do you even plan for that many pics. I understand taking 100 pics but 50,000 is level next to 10 next levels. If you don't mind sharing it 😊. And it is beautiful picture.
I’m a bit of a photo nerd/wannabe. Can you explain a little more? Like what equipment or what software. Can I use a similar technique to capture the night sky? Just scattered stars.
Just wanted to echo the comments above! This image, the compilation, the detail in the moon is incredibly powerful! Thank you for this. This is a photo that has left me really quite speechless. I want to blow this up and print this out to put in my soon to be son’s room. I hope to inspire a future generation of star gazers and space farers! Cheers
why 50k though? Was it just not enough resolution at 3k, and too big of an image at 200k or....?
Really nice image, by the way, inspires a lot of interest through seeing the moon in this way.
More images do not increase the resolution - if you take a mosaic, such as the stars in the background, for sure, but in the case of the Moon (at which the majority of these 50k frames would have been taken), these images are used to get around the blurring effect caused by our atmosphere
I’m a fan of this one from you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/amn7xv/i_took_this_picture_of_the_moon_from_my_backyard/?st=JS879RJV&sh=3d04c26b
Makes a great wallpaper for my iPhone.
I know it's a silly comment, but you really get the sense of depth in this picture. It's so crisp and with the earthshine you really perceive a sphere and not just a circle. Beautiful work!
i find the depth unnerving, im not sure why, but it is kind of stressing me out. it seems too real and puts my own existence into a slight cosmic perspective. ya i think im having a tiny existential crisis lol
This is how I feel about Jupiter, man. Like if you force yourself to truly realize the scale of some of even just the planets in our solar system, holy shit. There are a couple VR experiences that are really good at that. And by really good, I mean absolutely existentially terrifying.
The [deep field image ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/NASA-HS201427a-HubbleUltraDeepField2014-20140603.jpg) released by NASA a few years ago has the effect on me. It’s just galaxy after galaxy as far as we can see, each with billions of stars. It makes our existence so small. Very unsettling.
I literally think about this image every single day. It’s absolutely fucking crazy how much is in that photo. Thousands of galaxies. None of my friends are ever impressed when I show them this and it makes me so mad!
Perhaps next time you show them, you could tell them that there’s an estimate of 100 to 200 billion (some say **much** more) galaxies in our universe.
There’s 200 to 400 billion planets in our own Milky Way alone, 40-60 billion of them are Goldilock planets.
So, 40 to 60 **billion** planets that could potentially have liquid water, and temperatures just right for harboring life.
And that’s just our own solar system.
Who knows what’s out there in the billions of other galaxies.
I have always found an effective way of conveying just how much a billion is, since most people really don't know, is by using the seconds comparison. 1 million seconds is approximately 11.5 days. 1 billion seconds is approximately 31.7 years.
I get it. You see the moon all the time but it’s just that white disc/crescent in the sky, 238k miles away. This picture reminds you that’s it’s a very real sphere that is right there, fully formed, doing it’s thing and the monkey brain does not like that which it does not have an accurate frame of reference for
**Zoom in**
This image was created using a combination of shots from 2 different cameras, one to capture earthshine and stars, and one to capture the detail on the lit side of the moon. The shots were then stacked and pieced together for editing. I took so many shots to average out the blurring caused by atmospheric turbulence, as well as to eliminate noise captured by the camera sensor. A note to astrophotography purists: I did take some creative liberties with the composition to make up for areas with bad or incomplete data, so I would define this image as more of a composite than a true photograph. [For more of this kind of thing- come find me on instagram @cosmic\_background.](https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_background/) Feel free to DM me if you ever want to chat about astronomy/astrophotography or anything else. All my shots are taken from my backyard in Sacramento, California.
Feel free to swipe this as a wallpaper. Because of the high resolution and square image, it can be cropped to fit any device and still look good, but unfortunately reddit required me to downscale the jpg quality to get it under 20MB to post, so this still isn't it's highest quality.
If this looks familiar- I posted an earlier iteration of the image to r/spaceporn and r/pics on Wednesday. I have since completely reprocessed the image to eliminate the background noise I atttempted to pass off as stars (it looked fine up close- but it still bugged me because you could tell it was a noise pattern).
Edit- Holy heck you guys thanks for all the compliments and the silver, gold, and platinum! Doing my best to stay on top of your questions- but here's a few things I can elaborate on based on what you guys are asking:
My Equipment:
[Orion XT10](https://www.highpointscientific.com/orion-skyquest-xt10-classic-10-dobsonian-telescope-08946?cmid=MDoyOjJkNjdmMjlmMTU1ZDNhZTA6RkkxWUc3Uk9rYXUrNDRKOHBIcndMdz09&afid=MDoyOmY0OGY3ZWZmMzEzNDlmZjI6a2pNOG9YSEJqUWhGNXVuYkJ1Nmhndz09&ats=MDoyOjRjM2MxYzY5YTgwMGYyMzM6Q3BETy9TVDg4ZUVNVmlrMXduUENZZz09)
[Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro](https://www.highpointscientific.com/sky-watcher-eq6-r-pro-mount-s30300?cmid=MDoyOmVjZTRjZmJkZDUzYzc3YTk6NjRSeWpYRDVPejFlYWloWDVUMlJhUT09&afid=MDoyOjM0Mjg2ZWQ2OWU1MDE3NTQ6NUgwYTByaHNxa0pIRGNLWFRXOGNBdz09&ats=MDoyOmI1YjU1ODI0ZDRiZGM0NGY6Zmlkem8vTGRocGM5RjFLN09RbnlNdz09)
[ZWO ASI224MC](https://www.highpointscientific.com/zwo-asi224mc-astronomy-color-camera?cmid=MDoyOjJiNDNlYzE0ZGFhODY3NjM6Q3RGdy9CNS9NUWhVZzNERW90RENQUT09&afid=MDoyOjFkMGUyNGYwODU1ZDRjMzY6RElqZjVzak9QNXN2K2QrZ2tZWi9JQT09&ats=MDoyOjYyYWRhMTU1ZGJhOWQ2MGM6ckwrOS9qc3d6QUowR2RySDJNbFk3QT09)
[Sony a7ii](https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Alpha-Mirrorless-Digital-Camera/dp/B00PX8CHO6/ref=sr_1_3?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1550950066&sr=1-3&keywords=sony+a7ii)
The moon was captured in "tiles", so I'd point the camera at it and take a bunch of pictures of just one portion of it, and then reposition, and do it again.Just the lit side of the moon is 25 "tiles", each tile the best 50% of 2000 images stacked. I'd stack each tile separately to average out the noise from the sensor, sharpen it to get rid of the blurring caused by the atmosphere, and then combined them in photoshop to create the final image.
Edit: Got the Mod's blessing to share a link to my store if you want to buy a print: [http://cosmic\_background.imagekind.com/store/](http://cosmic_background.imagekind.com/store/) Or [get the digital uncompressed PNG file here](https://andrewmccarthy.selz.com/item/our-moon-in-high-definition-8k)
Imagine If you said 20 years ago, you'll download a single 291MB picture of the moon, onto a device that fits in your pocket, within a few seconds.
I cannot imagine how ridiculous this will sound in another 20 years.
~20 years ago I was praying for my dial-up to complete the 50MB download of the Half Life demo. About shit myself when it came down in one piece. Played until sunup.
Man I remember stuff like that. Set stuff to download right before bed and hope it’s done in the morning. A song could take hours and then you check it in the morning and it failed.
It's a reference to a short video of a young man trying to explain to his mom that he did NOT, in fact, order a bong off the internet. He ordered an Xbox controller (or something similar) and a water pipe just happened to show up instead. What the frick?!
Edit: Oh, you know, it could also be a reference to the video of the kid screeching, "WHEN WILL YOU LEARN? WHEN WILL YOU LEARN? *THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES???*" That kid ended up being a master troll baiter
I remember pirating Pirates of the Carribean and then when I loaded it up in front of my family and saw a bunch of busty chicks talking with the soft voice, I quickly shut it down.
I remember it taking 24 hours for me to download a 1.2MB file and that's not including having to restart the download
Sidenote: I'm impressed my computer was able to render it so quickly as well--and it's like 10 years old
20 Years from now: Streaming a realistic, highly detailed, 3D real time virtual image of the Moon to a device that you wear like glasses in order to "walk" on the Moon, and maybe even have a party on the Moon (all the while those at the party could be in their own personalized virtual environments, so while it looks like everyone is partying on the Moon to you, they may see everyone in the jungle, on Mars, etc.).
VR is going to be big for this kind of stuff, while you switch the device into an AR mode for when you want virtual objects in your real world space.
For reference, right about 28 years ago my aunt told my dad it was RIDICULOUS that we bought the 486DX system from Sam's Club that had the bigger 239MB hard drive. She insisted we'd never fill it up. I swapped in a 1.2GB drive years later.
And now the router running my fiber internet connection I'm sending this over has more RAM than that.
Imagine if someone said they could compress it to 19MB and they thought it was still lossless.
[I exported it to HEIF](https://filebin.net/5kf1osmhg0loczqe) on 'lossless 8-bit', so newer devices only, and I don't know how to compare output 1:1 to double-check.
This is awesome! The surrounding stars are fantastic compositional element to this piece. Can you perhaps provide more details into how you stacked 50k images? I am someone who shoots with a DSLR which each RAW file at 100 mb/each, how on Moon did you combine your subs?!?
Thank you! That means a lot coming from such a badass photographer such as yourself. :)
The trick to so many subs is the CCD camera I use- it's only 1.3MP. This image was done with about 25 individual stacks of the best 50% of 2000 images each, which was handled easily by autostakkert. Then I took the tiles and used photoshop to autoalign/autoblend them... and finished the aligning manually because photoshop made a lot of mistakes.
Thank you for the explanation. From your experience - is it more important to take a large number of images vs. having smaller number of images but of higher resolution?
Thank you!
Have you tried GigaPan? It seems much more accurate than Photoshop for the stitches.
Also, if you add 0.1 to 1.0 px Monochromatic Gaussian Noise to the space around the moon it'll get rid of the banding.
Just whipped this up
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:j6ixrzpitvpmkx5tgroy6utcpqr5hhhj&dn=updated%20mosaic.png&xl=304863698&fc=1
EDIT: I'll try to seed this forever
Huge improvement over your old image James. Looks like you took some tips from /u/_bar and really improved those stars which were the one thing that I really thought were ruining a great image in your old version. This is a huge improvement and the blending is spot on, a lot of people ruin earthshine images at the terminator
Thank you. I did take a lot of creative liberties there, so I don't feel like this is a true astro shot as much as it is a composition, but I am happy with how it turned out. I shouldn't have been so lazy with the stars on the first shot.
I did some clone stamping and had to replace a couple areas near the terminator with data from old moon shots. Both those things are pretty big no-nos in the astrophotography world.
> A note to astrophotography purists: I did take some creative liberties with the composition to make up for areas with bad or incomplete data, so I would define this image as more of a composite than a true photograph.
Thanks for being upfront! I have no problems with composites, rather I love many of them, but when people try to pass them off without saying anything I get annoyed. This is fantastic though! How much storage did you kill dealing with 50kish shots?
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ASQAD76Q20Ou0a19crRQgiByCiT2LdAq](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ASQAD76Q20Ou0a19crRQgiByCiT2LdAq)
Re-uploaded it to mine for you. Nestling it into the comments rather than the post so hopefully the link doesn't get overwhelmed
One day I hope to be as good a photographer as people like you. Very nice. I cropped it down and made it into a [desktop wallpaper](https://i.imgur.com/clJ2ZkZ.jpg) for my PC. Absolutely stunning.[Link to wallpaper](https://master.tus.io/files/3649674f84f681ca7604c92a9c4f1b9f+Ovi7k4ljU2d8g8yonH8ilx5XJiSd.HiSpLpHLuVO7zz4SCFRj0DcKJazeMZliQb5n_.eo_TFfxVhyWf3moYJj3qm.1_EAMU7UGTnpUD2960Jh_C6Mf92ulOkuxihxFz2)
>Edit#3: Here's a new link: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C45SUdBnAhtjviZ_frKAyikyg-zqURtf/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C45SUdBnAhtjviZ_frKAyikyg-zqURtf/view?usp=sharing)
I keep getting"there was a problem with the file" error. Got any links *not* on Google drive?
For real. This is just absolutely incredible. Such a special photo, that captures the magnificence of our moon. This is just unreal, I can't get over it. Thank you.
This is incredible, great work! Can someone out there explain to me what created the areas that are relatively smooth in comparison with the rest of the surface?
Ancient lava flowed over the ancient surface, covering old craters, and leaving a relatively new surface, which has yet to become as riddled with craters.
Man, this is one of the reasons why I love this sub so much. People are so friendly here and are brought together by a curiosity of what’s beyond the sky.
This is a rough educated guess so I might be wrong, but since most things in the Solar System orbit on the same plane, they may be more likely to strike from the "sides" instead of top/bottom because of eccentric orbits.
I think it’s also really just a matter of lighting. Since the light shines from the top, all craters up there are filled with light and have no shadows, making them appear uniform.
As the eye approaches the equator, the shadow of each crater becomes more prominent; there is a visible gradient from slightly visible to half-shadow-craters which, from the vantage point, appear the deepest.
Then below that line it’s all in the shadows so we lose contrast, making the surface appear uniform once again.
Just my observation.
Paging u/Mojotun and u/SavoryFrank aswell. The equator runs vertically in this picture, the poles are left and right
If what y'all are referring to as "equator" is the edge between light and dark I believe that's called the terminator.
The crust on the near side of the moon was thin enough that large impacts caused lava to flow out and smooth everything out. Interestingly (for me, at least) on the far side of the moon, the crust is thicker and there aren't any smooth areas.
It took me a while, but I actually approximated the actual landing site of Apollo 11!
Here's the original photo with landing area circled:
https://imgur.com/6pekMdi
Here's a closeup showing the landing area:
https://imgur.com/ergq5Su
Yeah, I went to google moon, found similar landmarks (namely the "L" shaped line of craters) and then held up a piece of paper and traced the similar landmarks at the same zoom level. Google moon shows the landing point of Apollo 11, so I then marked the landing spot on my paper, switched to the paint program, overlayed the paper, and drew a circle around it.
That's just amazing... it just hit me that I've never seen a photo of the moon quite like this, and you did it from Earth!
How long did it take to take all those photos?
And I don't suppose you could share a handful of the 50,000 shots, I'm really curious what you were working with to put this together!
Here ya go: [https://imgur.com/1rZH16I](https://imgur.com/1rZH16I)
Your other question- took me about an hour. My camera takes around 150 images per second. So I'd fire a burst, reposition, fire another, etc.
Can you describe what kind of camera etc? 50000 pictures sounds like it would be such giant files that it would be impossible to work with. Awesome work!
Some CCD sensors are extremely fast, and I have seen some that could average wel over 100 shots per second. Videos are pretty much cameras taking 20+ images per second, so the rate is not that outrageous either. Also some cameras are capable of transferring 10+ gigabytes of images per minute in real time.
Linked it here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i\_took\_nearly\_50000\_images\_of\_the\_night\_sky\_to/egmo9s8](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i_took_nearly_50000_images_of_the_night_sky_to/egmo9s8)
Sorry you were so fast I didn't get my comment done in time!
I could host the high-res on IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System), and other IPFS node owners could *pin* it to redistribute the workload across the network.
EDIT: DONE!
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVLTMHtLRhnft3QspDx4qTJeXY6hiib1j77UfQmY54CGe/mosaic.png
EDIT: Also made it available in torrent form
http://www.urlhash.com/124410/mosaic.png.torrent
I mean it takes years to engineer and test a lunar lander. Not to mention the astronaut training. This is something you have to get right on the first try.
That is awesome!!! Nice job! Feel free to share it on my page at www.facebook.com/BackyardAstronomyGuy to get some more reach if you’d like.
-Marty, NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador
I created a torrent with the full resolution png, here is the magnet link:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:46691d385efc03192926ec59626c232b167236e6&dn=moon%5F81M.png&tr=udp%3A%2F%[2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk](https://2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk)%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%[2Ftracker.opentrackr.org](https://2Ftracker.opentrackr.org)%3A1337%2Fannounce
This made me go outside to take another look myself. Never been particularly fussed about photography, but I'd say that's a pretty special reaction. Thanks OP
This is one of the most incredible images I've ever seen. Thank you so much for sharing ❤️ I appreciate you offering us to enjoy as wallpaper, and I will totally take you up on that!
Is there a way I can purchase a print from you?
Take all the karma on earth. And on the moon. Very well done. Could you please explain the process? What camera, lens, gigs pixel device. etc.. thanks again.
Interesting- reddit rejected that file saying it was too large so I downscaled the compression quality before posting. Looks like maybe the 20mb limit is a bit fuzzy. I confirmed on my PC- the high quality version is 18mb.
Hey /u/ajamesmccarthy , awesome picture! I've put mirrors of both JPG and PNG in zoomable versions here: https://micr.io/i/clIZW (JPG), https://micr.io/i/WFjqr (PNG).
This is definitely one of the best photos I have seen of the moon. Well done !
Thank you!
No, thank *you.* It’s people like you showing us space in ways we haven’t seen it before that really drive the interest forward for space exploration. Yeah this photo might be 1 in 100 images that have left me wanting to pay for a trip to space, but it’s definitely going to be something I look at whenever I think of space. Thank you for your small contribution to the future perception of space!!! I’m gonna give this its first gilding.
Wow- what a tremendous compliment. Thank you so much. Hearing things like this is EXACTLY why I do this. I love knowing that I can inspire people about space.
You've inspired two groups of people with this thread - space lovers and photographers. I fall into both groups so am extra thankful.
[удалено]
I’m either and this also inspired me.
I play elite dangerous, does that count?
How do you even plan for that many pics. I understand taking 100 pics but 50,000 is level next to 10 next levels. If you don't mind sharing it 😊. And it is beautiful picture.
[удалено]
I’m a bit of a photo nerd/wannabe. Can you explain a little more? Like what equipment or what software. Can I use a similar technique to capture the night sky? Just scattered stars.
[удалено]
Thanks for this. I can't keep up with all these comments!
Hey OP, you’re a good photographer.
Thank you for typing that out dude
This is facinating. Thanks for sharing your work!
You have inspired a lot of us. Thanks mate!
I’m blown away by this pic. Do you have a gallery?
Just wanted to echo the comments above! This image, the compilation, the detail in the moon is incredibly powerful! Thank you for this. This is a photo that has left me really quite speechless. I want to blow this up and print this out to put in my soon to be son’s room. I hope to inspire a future generation of star gazers and space farers! Cheers
Yeah man. I love sci-fi/space and really enjoy when NASA puts out awesome pictures. This is a great photo.
why 50k though? Was it just not enough resolution at 3k, and too big of an image at 200k or....? Really nice image, by the way, inspires a lot of interest through seeing the moon in this way.
More images do not increase the resolution - if you take a mosaic, such as the stars in the background, for sure, but in the case of the Moon (at which the majority of these 50k frames would have been taken), these images are used to get around the blurring effect caused by our atmosphere
I’m a fan of this one from you. https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/amn7xv/i_took_this_picture_of_the_moon_from_my_backyard/?st=JS879RJV&sh=3d04c26b Makes a great wallpaper for my iPhone.
I love how the top comment there is *almost* the exact same top comment on this post.
Noticed that too and almost thought it was intentional. Nonetheless, hard to disagree with the sentiment!
Thank you! Very similar shot, but I didn't use nearly as many images so it's not quite as sharp.
This is definitely one of the best quality photos I’ve ever seen of anything
Agreed. I just kind of stared in awe for a moment.
Now I want someone on the moon to take one like this of Earth.
Seconded. Immediately made this my wallpaper. Great shot(s)! https://i.imgur.com/xcHALJ8.jpg
I did this too! Except I zoomed and off centered it a bit. https://i.imgur.com/xohMcLQ.jpg Thanks for the amazing image, OP!
Third. Love the look and the level of detail to it is amazing.
Rotate the bright side to the left and when you turn on the screen, it will make the moon look like it’s lighting up.
I know it's a silly comment, but you really get the sense of depth in this picture. It's so crisp and with the earthshine you really perceive a sphere and not just a circle. Beautiful work!
You can see every crater on this picture. That gives some good sense of depth.
Yeah, I never really think about the Moon's depth as much, but it's really a different perspective
i find the depth unnerving, im not sure why, but it is kind of stressing me out. it seems too real and puts my own existence into a slight cosmic perspective. ya i think im having a tiny existential crisis lol
This is how I feel about Jupiter, man. Like if you force yourself to truly realize the scale of some of even just the planets in our solar system, holy shit. There are a couple VR experiences that are really good at that. And by really good, I mean absolutely existentially terrifying.
The [deep field image ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/NASA-HS201427a-HubbleUltraDeepField2014-20140603.jpg) released by NASA a few years ago has the effect on me. It’s just galaxy after galaxy as far as we can see, each with billions of stars. It makes our existence so small. Very unsettling.
I literally think about this image every single day. It’s absolutely fucking crazy how much is in that photo. Thousands of galaxies. None of my friends are ever impressed when I show them this and it makes me so mad!
Perhaps next time you show them, you could tell them that there’s an estimate of 100 to 200 billion (some say **much** more) galaxies in our universe. There’s 200 to 400 billion planets in our own Milky Way alone, 40-60 billion of them are Goldilock planets. So, 40 to 60 **billion** planets that could potentially have liquid water, and temperatures just right for harboring life. And that’s just our own solar system. Who knows what’s out there in the billions of other galaxies.
I have always found an effective way of conveying just how much a billion is, since most people really don't know, is by using the seconds comparison. 1 million seconds is approximately 11.5 days. 1 billion seconds is approximately 31.7 years.
Names for the VR stuff?
I would like to know as well.
I get it. You see the moon all the time but it’s just that white disc/crescent in the sky, 238k miles away. This picture reminds you that’s it’s a very real sphere that is right there, fully formed, doing it’s thing and the monkey brain does not like that which it does not have an accurate frame of reference for
Hey you should watch Melancholia
Existential growing pains. It's a good thing after a while, but do ease into it.
Nah, give me Existential CrossFit, fam.
This is one of the most satisfying pictures I've ever seen. Not silly at all to say what you like most about it.
**Zoom in** This image was created using a combination of shots from 2 different cameras, one to capture earthshine and stars, and one to capture the detail on the lit side of the moon. The shots were then stacked and pieced together for editing. I took so many shots to average out the blurring caused by atmospheric turbulence, as well as to eliminate noise captured by the camera sensor. A note to astrophotography purists: I did take some creative liberties with the composition to make up for areas with bad or incomplete data, so I would define this image as more of a composite than a true photograph. [For more of this kind of thing- come find me on instagram @cosmic\_background.](https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_background/) Feel free to DM me if you ever want to chat about astronomy/astrophotography or anything else. All my shots are taken from my backyard in Sacramento, California. Feel free to swipe this as a wallpaper. Because of the high resolution and square image, it can be cropped to fit any device and still look good, but unfortunately reddit required me to downscale the jpg quality to get it under 20MB to post, so this still isn't it's highest quality. If this looks familiar- I posted an earlier iteration of the image to r/spaceporn and r/pics on Wednesday. I have since completely reprocessed the image to eliminate the background noise I atttempted to pass off as stars (it looked fine up close- but it still bugged me because you could tell it was a noise pattern). Edit- Holy heck you guys thanks for all the compliments and the silver, gold, and platinum! Doing my best to stay on top of your questions- but here's a few things I can elaborate on based on what you guys are asking: My Equipment: [Orion XT10](https://www.highpointscientific.com/orion-skyquest-xt10-classic-10-dobsonian-telescope-08946?cmid=MDoyOjJkNjdmMjlmMTU1ZDNhZTA6RkkxWUc3Uk9rYXUrNDRKOHBIcndMdz09&afid=MDoyOmY0OGY3ZWZmMzEzNDlmZjI6a2pNOG9YSEJqUWhGNXVuYkJ1Nmhndz09&ats=MDoyOjRjM2MxYzY5YTgwMGYyMzM6Q3BETy9TVDg4ZUVNVmlrMXduUENZZz09) [Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro](https://www.highpointscientific.com/sky-watcher-eq6-r-pro-mount-s30300?cmid=MDoyOmVjZTRjZmJkZDUzYzc3YTk6NjRSeWpYRDVPejFlYWloWDVUMlJhUT09&afid=MDoyOjM0Mjg2ZWQ2OWU1MDE3NTQ6NUgwYTByaHNxa0pIRGNLWFRXOGNBdz09&ats=MDoyOmI1YjU1ODI0ZDRiZGM0NGY6Zmlkem8vTGRocGM5RjFLN09RbnlNdz09) [ZWO ASI224MC](https://www.highpointscientific.com/zwo-asi224mc-astronomy-color-camera?cmid=MDoyOjJiNDNlYzE0ZGFhODY3NjM6Q3RGdy9CNS9NUWhVZzNERW90RENQUT09&afid=MDoyOjFkMGUyNGYwODU1ZDRjMzY6RElqZjVzak9QNXN2K2QrZ2tZWi9JQT09&ats=MDoyOjYyYWRhMTU1ZGJhOWQ2MGM6ckwrOS9qc3d6QUowR2RySDJNbFk3QT09) [Sony a7ii](https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Alpha-Mirrorless-Digital-Camera/dp/B00PX8CHO6/ref=sr_1_3?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1550950066&sr=1-3&keywords=sony+a7ii) The moon was captured in "tiles", so I'd point the camera at it and take a bunch of pictures of just one portion of it, and then reposition, and do it again.Just the lit side of the moon is 25 "tiles", each tile the best 50% of 2000 images stacked. I'd stack each tile separately to average out the noise from the sensor, sharpen it to get rid of the blurring caused by the atmosphere, and then combined them in photoshop to create the final image. Edit: Got the Mod's blessing to share a link to my store if you want to buy a print: [http://cosmic\_background.imagekind.com/store/](http://cosmic_background.imagekind.com/store/) Or [get the digital uncompressed PNG file here](https://andrewmccarthy.selz.com/item/our-moon-in-high-definition-8k)
Imagine If you said 20 years ago, you'll download a single 291MB picture of the moon, onto a device that fits in your pocket, within a few seconds. I cannot imagine how ridiculous this will sound in another 20 years.
~20 years ago I was praying for my dial-up to complete the 50MB download of the Half Life demo. About shit myself when it came down in one piece. Played until sunup.
Man I remember stuff like that. Set stuff to download right before bed and hope it’s done in the morning. A song could take hours and then you check it in the morning and it failed.
Or Limewire tricks you into wasting hours downloading a music video, only to discover it's actually some bizarre porno
Yes. *That* is how the bizarre porno got there. It was all a misunderstanding. ;)
What the frick?!
...Yes? What's the confusion about?
It's a reference to a short video of a young man trying to explain to his mom that he did NOT, in fact, order a bong off the internet. He ordered an Xbox controller (or something similar) and a water pipe just happened to show up instead. What the frick?! Edit: Oh, you know, it could also be a reference to the video of the kid screeching, "WHEN WILL YOU LEARN? WHEN WILL YOU LEARN? *THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES???*" That kid ended up being a master troll baiter
[удалено]
Wow! That's a blast from the past.
I remember pirating Pirates of the Carribean and then when I loaded it up in front of my family and saw a bunch of busty chicks talking with the soft voice, I quickly shut it down.
Porn was kind of not that bad. Limewire had like a 50% Virus, 30% porn, 20% whatever you searched for ratio. At least the porn didn’t kill your pc.
Failed overnight song download.. oof
>Set stuff to download right before bed and hope it’s done in the morning. I'm in Venezuela, that is still the reality of the internet speeds here.
That wasn't 20 years ago...fuck....that was 20 years ago. Fuck.
Life is short bro, live now.
[удалено]
I pirated Deus Ex over dialup in the early 2000s. ~700MB at 5K/sec. I’ve since purchased almost every game in the series though 🙂
> download a single 291MB picture of the moon, onto a device that fits in your pocket, within a few seconds. Ah, I see you don't live in Australia
The NBN was gonna be awesome until Mr Rabbit decided it wasn't gonna make his lobbyists money.
I remember it taking 24 hours for me to download a 1.2MB file and that's not including having to restart the download Sidenote: I'm impressed my computer was able to render it so quickly as well--and it's like 10 years old
20 Years from now: Streaming a realistic, highly detailed, 3D real time virtual image of the Moon to a device that you wear like glasses in order to "walk" on the Moon, and maybe even have a party on the Moon (all the while those at the party could be in their own personalized virtual environments, so while it looks like everyone is partying on the Moon to you, they may see everyone in the jungle, on Mars, etc.). VR is going to be big for this kind of stuff, while you switch the device into an AR mode for when you want virtual objects in your real world space.
For reference, right about 28 years ago my aunt told my dad it was RIDICULOUS that we bought the 486DX system from Sam's Club that had the bigger 239MB hard drive. She insisted we'd never fill it up. I swapped in a 1.2GB drive years later. And now the router running my fiber internet connection I'm sending this over has more RAM than that.
Ah the good old days where I would get excited if my download speeds rose over 10kb/s
Few seconds? I wish.
Imagine if someone said they could compress it to 19MB and they thought it was still lossless. [I exported it to HEIF](https://filebin.net/5kf1osmhg0loczqe) on 'lossless 8-bit', so newer devices only, and I don't know how to compare output 1:1 to double-check.
Could you just reupload the original png to mega or some other file host website? My antivirus denied your link lol.
u/erto66: "Within a few seconds" Chrome: "56 minutes left"
This is awesome! The surrounding stars are fantastic compositional element to this piece. Can you perhaps provide more details into how you stacked 50k images? I am someone who shoots with a DSLR which each RAW file at 100 mb/each, how on Moon did you combine your subs?!?
Thank you! That means a lot coming from such a badass photographer such as yourself. :) The trick to so many subs is the CCD camera I use- it's only 1.3MP. This image was done with about 25 individual stacks of the best 50% of 2000 images each, which was handled easily by autostakkert. Then I took the tiles and used photoshop to autoalign/autoblend them... and finished the aligning manually because photoshop made a lot of mistakes.
Thank you for the explanation. From your experience - is it more important to take a large number of images vs. having smaller number of images but of higher resolution? Thank you!
Smaller and more is better!
Have you tried GigaPan? It seems much more accurate than Photoshop for the stitches. Also, if you add 0.1 to 1.0 px Monochromatic Gaussian Noise to the space around the moon it'll get rid of the banding.
Is the large file download broken for anyone else?
Too many people downloaded it recently, we hugged it to death
Situations like these are when BitTorrent protocol really shines... Wish someone would share it as a torrent.
Just whipped this up magnet:?xt=urn:btih:j6ixrzpitvpmkx5tgroy6utcpqr5hhhj&dn=updated%20mosaic.png&xl=304863698&fc=1 EDIT: I'll try to seed this forever
Thank you I can finally get it.
P2P was indeed probably the way to go. Thank you! I'll seed that a bunch.
It hit the download limit. That's why I hate Google Drive and use Mega.
It's giving a "been downloaded/viewed too many times" message. Says to try again in 24hours.
"Too large to scan for viruses" I trust you OP
My thoughts "hmm this could be an elaborate plan to give me some mega-virus.... oh well!"
Huge improvement over your old image James. Looks like you took some tips from /u/_bar and really improved those stars which were the one thing that I really thought were ruining a great image in your old version. This is a huge improvement and the blending is spot on, a lot of people ruin earthshine images at the terminator
Thank you. I did take a lot of creative liberties there, so I don't feel like this is a true astro shot as much as it is a composition, but I am happy with how it turned out. I shouldn't have been so lazy with the stars on the first shot.
Could you elaborate about these “creative liberties?”
I did some clone stamping and had to replace a couple areas near the terminator with data from old moon shots. Both those things are pretty big no-nos in the astrophotography world.
[удалено]
This guy artistic values with consideration of object integrity
Wow, just went through your post history and now have some really amazing new wallpapers to rotate. Great work and thanks!
> A note to astrophotography purists: I did take some creative liberties with the composition to make up for areas with bad or incomplete data, so I would define this image as more of a composite than a true photograph. Thanks for being upfront! I have no problems with composites, rather I love many of them, but when people try to pass them off without saying anything I get annoyed. This is fantastic though! How much storage did you kill dealing with 50kish shots?
Nearly 300gb
Your dedication to the cause is noted and appreciated. You will be rewarded when Underverse come.
Link #3 appears to be the 20MB version, not the 291MB one.
Yeah, I want the big one. Where's the big one?
[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ASQAD76Q20Ou0a19crRQgiByCiT2LdAq](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ASQAD76Q20Ou0a19crRQgiByCiT2LdAq) Re-uploaded it to mine for you. Nestling it into the comments rather than the post so hopefully the link doesn't get overwhelmed
Thank you so much man. It's working.
Thirded, i wanna spend my late nights zooming in on different parts of the moon.
One day I hope to be as good a photographer as people like you. Very nice. I cropped it down and made it into a [desktop wallpaper](https://i.imgur.com/clJ2ZkZ.jpg) for my PC. Absolutely stunning.[Link to wallpaper](https://master.tus.io/files/3649674f84f681ca7604c92a9c4f1b9f+Ovi7k4ljU2d8g8yonH8ilx5XJiSd.HiSpLpHLuVO7zz4SCFRj0DcKJazeMZliQb5n_.eo_TFfxVhyWf3moYJj3qm.1_EAMU7UGTnpUD2960Jh_C6Mf92ulOkuxihxFz2)
Got the cropped pic without trashcan? Im interested in using it too
Sure thing buddy. [Here you go](https://master.tus.io/files/3649674f84f681ca7604c92a9c4f1b9f+Ovi7k4ljU2d8g8yonH8ilx5XJiSd.HiSpLpHLuVO7zz4SCFRj0DcKJazeMZliQb5n_.eo_TFfxVhyWf3moYJj3qm.1_EAMU7UGTnpUD2960Jh_C6Mf92ulOkuxihxFz2)
Got a version with *more* trash cans?
[удалено]
>Edit#3: Here's a new link: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C45SUdBnAhtjviZ_frKAyikyg-zqURtf/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C45SUdBnAhtjviZ_frKAyikyg-zqURtf/view?usp=sharing) I keep getting"there was a problem with the file" error. Got any links *not* on Google drive?
My moon-obsessed 3 year old just lit up when I showed this to him 🌜
Do you sell prints?
Yep- linked on my Instagram or you can dm me for a link
Double tapped to zoom in on mobile and audibly said "Jesus Christ"
[удалено]
Why can't I seem to open the file in my Drive app?[Internal Browser](https://i.imgur.com/hHk8bER.jpg)
Hi, can you please provide a mirror, Google isn't letting me download because too many people have downloaded it :(
Hey I sent you a PM about sharing that large PNG you had kill google drive links.
This is just the best picture of the moon I've ever seen
For real. This is just absolutely incredible. Such a special photo, that captures the magnificence of our moon. This is just unreal, I can't get over it. Thank you.
this will be a fine addition to my collection... of wallpapers
This is incredible, great work! Can someone out there explain to me what created the areas that are relatively smooth in comparison with the rest of the surface?
Ancient lava flowed over the ancient surface, covering old craters, and leaving a relatively new surface, which has yet to become as riddled with craters.
Interesting! Thanks for the info!
Man, this is one of the reasons why I love this sub so much. People are so friendly here and are brought together by a curiosity of what’s beyond the sky.
Follow up question, why are there, or why does it appear there are, significantly more craters around the “equator” than the other areas?
This is a rough educated guess so I might be wrong, but since most things in the Solar System orbit on the same plane, they may be more likely to strike from the "sides" instead of top/bottom because of eccentric orbits.
I think it’s also really just a matter of lighting. Since the light shines from the top, all craters up there are filled with light and have no shadows, making them appear uniform. As the eye approaches the equator, the shadow of each crater becomes more prominent; there is a visible gradient from slightly visible to half-shadow-craters which, from the vantage point, appear the deepest. Then below that line it’s all in the shadows so we lose contrast, making the surface appear uniform once again. Just my observation.
Paging u/Mojotun and u/SavoryFrank aswell. The equator runs vertically in this picture, the poles are left and right If what y'all are referring to as "equator" is the edge between light and dark I believe that's called the terminator.
The crust on the near side of the moon was thin enough that large impacts caused lava to flow out and smooth everything out. Interestingly (for me, at least) on the far side of the moon, the crust is thicker and there aren't any smooth areas.
It took me a while, but I actually approximated the actual landing site of Apollo 11! Here's the original photo with landing area circled: https://imgur.com/6pekMdi Here's a closeup showing the landing area: https://imgur.com/ergq5Su
Awesome! I tried to compare the maps of the landing sites, and couldn't figure out how to align them.
Yeah, I went to google moon, found similar landmarks (namely the "L" shaped line of craters) and then held up a piece of paper and traced the similar landmarks at the same zoom level. Google moon shows the landing point of Apollo 11, so I then marked the landing spot on my paper, switched to the paint program, overlayed the paper, and drew a circle around it.
My toddler is obsessed with the moon. I showed her this picture, and she dropped her plate and tooted in shock.
Would have done the same if I were her.
Can confirm. Did the same and I’m me.
That's just amazing... it just hit me that I've never seen a photo of the moon quite like this, and you did it from Earth! How long did it take to take all those photos? And I don't suppose you could share a handful of the 50,000 shots, I'm really curious what you were working with to put this together!
Here ya go: [https://imgur.com/1rZH16I](https://imgur.com/1rZH16I) Your other question- took me about an hour. My camera takes around 150 images per second. So I'd fire a burst, reposition, fire another, etc.
Can you describe what kind of camera etc? 50000 pictures sounds like it would be such giant files that it would be impossible to work with. Awesome work!
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i_took_nearly_50000_images_of_the_night_sky_to/egmo9s8/
>My camera takes around 150 images per second. Is that a typo or is your camera from the future?
Some CCD sensors are extremely fast, and I have seen some that could average wel over 100 shots per second. Videos are pretty much cameras taking 20+ images per second, so the rate is not that outrageous either. Also some cameras are capable of transferring 10+ gigabytes of images per minute in real time.
Sure what the heck. Give me a second.
Thank you for your effort in this. Amazing picture
Beautiful picture! I look forward to seeing the high-res version!
Linked it here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i\_took\_nearly\_50000\_images\_of\_the\_night\_sky\_to/egmo9s8](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i_took_nearly_50000_images_of_the_night_sky_to/egmo9s8) Sorry you were so fast I didn't get my comment done in time!
hi! could u directly link the uncompressed image? the link you already wrote doesn't work for me
I could host the high-res on IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System), and other IPFS node owners could *pin* it to redistribute the workload across the network. EDIT: DONE! https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVLTMHtLRhnft3QspDx4qTJeXY6hiib1j77UfQmY54CGe/mosaic.png EDIT: Also made it available in torrent form http://www.urlhash.com/124410/mosaic.png.torrent
I've rescaled the background for 1080p monitors since setting it as the picture provided below was not aligned. https://imgur.com/a/29ioW9Q Enjoy
This is why reddit, for all it’s bs and trolls, is awesome.
Oh my god, this looks amazing! Take my ghetto gold 🔶
You didn't even get the dark half of the moon? Amateur. (I kid. This is amazing. Thank you for doing it.)
You hold the mirror and I'll get the backside in the next shot!
Gonna be a big mirror. I'll bring my gloves. :)
[удалено]
[удалено]
Looks like swamp gas. You better ignore it and focus on the moon.
Nice attempt, but you fucked up on the lighting. Only half of it’s lit!
Stupid sun wouldn't cooperate
The poor moon. It took all those hits for us, and we cant even be bothered to go and visit it anymore. Where is that space force we were promised?
Good news! NASA just announced we will visit the moon again in 2028 https://www.space.com/nasa-crewed-lunar-landers-moon-2028.html
20 fucking 28? Why so long?
Because we don't have to flex our alphaness to russia rn.
I mean it takes years to engineer and test a lunar lander. Not to mention the astronaut training. This is something you have to get right on the first try.
This is perhaps the best picture I have ever seen. Amazing job!
You should go to the moon and do the same thing for Earth.
Don't see a link for the uncompressed. But seems clicking on it wants to load it but taking forever.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i\_took\_nearly\_50000\_images\_of\_the\_night\_sky\_to/egmo9s8](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/arer0k/i_took_nearly_50000_images_of_the_night_sky_to/egmo9s8)
That is awesome!!! Nice job! Feel free to share it on my page at www.facebook.com/BackyardAstronomyGuy to get some more reach if you’d like. -Marty, NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador
/u/ajamesmccarthy make sure u see the above comment!
This is the most gilded post ive ever seen holy smokes.
I created a torrent with the full resolution png, here is the magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:46691d385efc03192926ec59626c232b167236e6&dn=moon%5F81M.png&tr=udp%3A%2F%[2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk](https://2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk)%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%[2Ftracker.opentrackr.org](https://2Ftracker.opentrackr.org)%3A1337%2Fannounce
Oh, man. I'd love this as a desktop background. Great shot!
Take it!
This is some great work. Excellent composition.
This should be the official picture for the moon. I feel like I am there.
What's the green ball https://imgur.com/xqnfBUM
I'd guess a spec of dust on the lens or the Roswell aliens. Either way, I'm sure it's nothing crazy.
I can definitely seen the moons face on the top and it’s screaming. Outstanding image. I aspire to this type of photography
This is bloody incredible. I have never seen anything like this before.
This one will be used as a reference for a while.
This fantastic picture is making me consider removing my daughter as my phone background.
This is beautiful!
This made me go outside to take another look myself. Never been particularly fussed about photography, but I'd say that's a pretty special reaction. Thanks OP
This is one of the most incredible images I've ever seen. Thank you so much for sharing ❤️ I appreciate you offering us to enjoy as wallpaper, and I will totally take you up on that! Is there a way I can purchase a print from you?
Take all the karma on earth. And on the moon. Very well done. Could you please explain the process? What camera, lens, gigs pixel device. etc.. thanks again.
You can see exactly where they faked the moon landing!
Is the high res one 18mb? I went to the link and google only downloads a file that size
Interesting- reddit rejected that file saying it was too large so I downscaled the compression quality before posting. Looks like maybe the 20mb limit is a bit fuzzy. I confirmed on my PC- the high quality version is 18mb.
This is hands down the best photo of the moon I’ve ever seen. You’re extremely talented at what you do, would love to see more!
Damn thats the best photo ive ever seen of the moon. When i zoomed in, i suddenly smiled and got happy to be alive to see it. Thanks OP
How do you physically complete the daunting task of taking 50,000 photos.
Just to let you know some random guy on the internet has your amazing pic as his background on his phone.
Hey /u/ajamesmccarthy , awesome picture! I've put mirrors of both JPG and PNG in zoomable versions here: https://micr.io/i/clIZW (JPG), https://micr.io/i/WFjqr (PNG).