Full Moon With Tycho's Rays and Blue-Grey Seas

The full Moon fills almost the entire square frame against a pure black sky. Its dark plains spread across the upper and left sides in muted blue-grey, while the brighter highlands in the lower right look pale grey with a faint warm tint. Sunlight falls straight onto the surface, so there are few shadows. Craters show as small bright rings and pits, and the limb is crisp all the way round. Near the bottom, a bright crater sits at the centre of long pale rays that fan out across the surface. A second, smaller ray crater lies left of centre.

The image is a composite. The detail comes from a panorama of 74 separate telescope views, each stacked from a video of about 1800 frames. The colour was captured separately with a refractor and added afterwards. The colour differences are real but subtle, and they reflect differences in surface composition. The dark plains are ancient lava flows, and the bright rays are fine material thrown out by impacts. Because the light comes from directly behind the viewer, the rays stand out while the relief looks flat. The square format suits phone and tablet screens, and on a widescreen monitor the black background blends into the bezel.

More like this: Three Bears Walking Down a Northern Highway and Great Blue Heron Standing on a Seaweed-Strewn Beach.