Andrew McCarthy an astronomer has
returned with a new high-definition view of the moon. The 85-megapixel
photograph was taken in McCarthy's backyard and contains all of the stunning
details one would expect. One might spend hours poring over the chart picking
out all the craters and geographical marks on the moon's surface.
Surprisingly, the final product isn't
quite what it appears to be. It is in effect the product of 24,000 images
rather than a single shot. McCarthy used a telescope mounted at 2000mm to
capture these photographs over 45 minutes. He then used only the right frames
with the least amount of ambient noise in post-production.
“I use a special camera designed for very
high frame rates so I can take hundreds of thousands of shots in minutes,”
McCarthy tells The Eyota. “Processing is a bit longer, just because it's so
much data. I use software that I upload the RAW frames into that aligns and
stacks it spitting out stacked files that I stitch together in Photoshop. I
also run various sharpening programs on the data and since the stacked images
are so high quality I can get crisp details from sharpening without producing
noise and artifacts. Processing started late in the evening and ran until I
shared the image around 3 pm the following day.”
The picture is another tribute to one of
McCarthy's favorite celestial bodies and it's a lovely addition to his
astrophotography portfolio. McCarthy has had a lot on his plate lately.COVID-19
hasn't had much of an effect on his job as a backyard astrophotographer. In
reality, he's had it easy for the past few months except for the California
wildfires which are obstructing visibility. He believes that by continuing to
share work like this people will be inspired to see the moon in a different
light.
McCarthy has posted the complete
85-megapixel edition of the illustration on his Patreon page if you want to see
it. You'll find astrophotography tricks and a look behind the scenes of his job
there. Prints of his work are now available for purchase.
Andrew McCarthy's 85-megapixel shot of
the moon has some close-up information.
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