Earth and Moon from MESSENGER
A montage of the Earth and the Moon taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft
on approach to its Earth flyby in August 2005.
Wide-angle camera color frames (taken on 2 Aug 2005) were composited
to make an approximately natural color view of Earth. The Moon image
was taken several days earlier (31 Jul 2005) by the narrow-angle
camera and colorized using lower resolution color data taken by the
wide-angle camera a couple of hours earlier.
The montage does not represent an actual arrangement of the Moon and Earth seen from the probe, nor does it represent relative sizes of the two bodies. It's two distinct composites (taken at different times) put together. The Moon's brightness was brought up for better visibility.
Phase angle of the Moon was 66 degrees, Earth was at a phase of 51 degrees.
Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / Gordan Ugarkovic
![Enhanced natural color view of Mercury [obsolete]](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2416/2232382633_712971d3bd_s.jpg)
Comments and faves
chopshopstore, céd, neave, marscat, and 23 other people added this photo to their favorites.
chopshopstore (64 months ago | reply)
for reals?
ugordan (64 months ago | reply)
for reals.
neave (64 months ago | reply)
Absolutely stunning. Thanks for all your effort in creating this.
chopshopstore (64 months ago | reply)
oh, i see your description now explains this was not a single shot. still nice. looks like it could be real as the phases are so close.
chopshopstore (64 months ago | reply)
hey gordan, this is up on digg:
digg.com/space/Beautiful_photo_of_Earth_and_M oon_taken_by...
ugordan (64 months ago | reply)
Yep, I noticed Neave posted it there and also the image view counter is increasing much faster than for other images. Sweet.
Bill_D (64 months ago | reply)
Another one for Riding with Robots on the High Frontier
owen.iverson (63 months ago | reply)
that's no moon...
markthegoth (63 months ago | reply)
wish I could afford that camera :P
Stunning shot though, just amazing