A fascinating video has been created using two million pictures to capture the natural ‘wobble’ of the moon in never-before-seen detail.

Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, known online as @Cosmic_Background, spent a month taking pictures which he weaved together for a unique glimpse of the moon’s surface.

The ‘wobble’ phenomenon is caused by the moon's slightly elliptical orbit working at an angle that is different from earth's spin, which causes a twisting from the perspective of a fixed position on earth.

The video shows the moon almost dancing in the night sky as it jolts around, its surface wobbling like jelly.

Andrew said: “This project was a labour of love, and I was thrilled with the final result.

“What's even more encouraging is how well it was received. It encourages me to take on even larger projects to showcase our universe in a new way.

"This is a well understood and documented phenomenon, but difficult to visualise. I set out to make it much easier to understand. "

The images were mostly taken through a telescope in Andrew's backyard in Arizona, USA.

To achieve the finished result, he captured several thousand images of each zoomed-in portion of the moon for each frame of video.

"I shot through a dust storm for one image, and between rain for others,” said Andrew.

"Since the capture process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, I had to cover the telescope for sporadic rain between batches of shots hoping for moments where the moon poked through.

"There were a few times I didn't think I'd be able to get the shot. This was also quite hard on me physically, as the moon rises one hour later each day, I had to transition from staying up until the wee hours of the morning to waking up at the wee hours of the morning with no adjustment period.

“I was quite exhausted by the end of things.”

And the respected astrophotographer is overjoyed with the response he has received after posting his project to social media.

He added: "The response has been overwhelmingly positive.

"On my Instagram people were saying it was their favourite thing I've ever done, and on TikTok so many people were saying they didn't know the moon moved like this, and my little 30-second video was incredibly educational.

"I had people DMing me telling me I inspired them to take up the hobby. I do these things because I enjoy doing them, but the positive response is such a huge motivator to take on more challenges like this one."

A fascinating video has been created using two million pictures to capture the natural ‘wobble’ of the moon in never-before-seen detail.



Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, known online as @Cosmic_Background, spent a month taking pictures which he weaved together for a unique glimpse of the moon’s surface.



The ‘wobble’ phenomenon is caused by the moon's slightly elliptical orbit working at an angle that is different from earth's spin, which causes a twisting from the perspective of a fixed position on earth.



The video shows the moon almost dancing in the night sky as it jolts around, its surface wobbling like jelly.


Andrew said: “This project was a labour of love, and I was thrilled with the final result.



“What's even more encouraging is how well it was received. It encourages me to take on even larger projects to showcase our universe in a new way.

"This is a well understood and documented phenomenon, but difficult to visualise. I set out to make it much easier to understand. "


The images were mostly taken through a telescope in Andrew's backyard in Arizona, USA.



To achieve the finished result, he captured several thousand images of each zoomed-in portion of the moon for each frame of video.

"I shot through a dust storm for one image, and between rain for others,” said Andrew.

"Since the capture process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, I had to cover the telescope for sporadic rain between batches of shots hoping for moments where the moon poked through.

"There were a few times I didn't think I'd be able to get the shot. This was also quite hard on me physically, as the moon rises one hour later each day, I had to transition from staying up until the wee hours of the morning to waking up at the wee hours of the morning with no adjustment period.



“I was quite exhausted by the end of things.”


And the respected astrophotographer is overjoyed with the response he has received after posting his project to social media.

He added: "The response has been overwhelmingly positive.

"On my Instagram people were saying it was their favourite thing I've ever done, and on TikTok so many people were saying they didn't know the moon moved like this, and my little 30-second video was incredibly educational.

"I had people DMing me telling me I inspired them to take up the hobby. I do these things because I enjoy doing them, but the positive response is such a huge motivator to take on more challenges like this one."

ENDS