A Redditor pieced together 150,000 photos of the Moon to make one breathtaking image - Business Insider

supermoon photo The 81-megapixel photo was made of color data from 150,000 images McCarthy captured of the Moon.ajamesmccarthy

Throughout history, the Moon has been a source of wonder and inspiration for mankind.
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy recently posted a stunning image of the Moon on his Instagram page.
The image is composed of 150,000 photos he captured of the supermoon on Tuesday February 19.

Whether it's a super blood wolf moon or various space exploration missions, the Moon has always captivated mankind and it seems it always will.

As the Earth's only permanent natural satellite, the Moon has been the muse of many a philosopher and astronomer — and it appears to have caught the attention of an astrophotographer from California too.

Andrew McCarthy is one of the most recent stargazers to draw our attention back to the celestial body, after he posted the stunning image of the supermoon on Tuesday February 19 below on Instagram.

Known on Reddit as ajamesmccarthy and Instagram as @cosmic_background, McCarthy explained that the 81-megapixel photo was composed of color data from 150,000 images he captured of the Moon.

He also produced this stunning shot of the supermoon, which has generated 19,578 likes on Instagram and over 162,000 votes and 3900 comments on Reddit since it was published.

The astrophotographer told Forbes that he produces the shots using an Orion XT10 telescope and two digital cameras — a Sony A7ii and the ZWO ASI224MC — then using Photoshop and other software to process the images.

"The inspiration came from when I was young looking through my dad's telescope," McCarthy explained to Forbes. "He showed me the planets and the Moon, and left me with a curiosity that has never been satisfied since. I spend my nights outside in awe at the wonders above us, and have only scratched the surface of what I want to be able to see and image."

This image was published just a few days after NASA Chief Executive Officer Jim Bridenstine's statement on OZY about US ambitions for the Moon: "I want to be clear — we are going to the moon with innovative new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the surface than we ever thought possible. This time, when we go to the moon, we will stay."

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