An astrophotographer has painstakingly recorded pin-sharp images of the full moon for an entire year, showing the surprising “wobble” effect in an amazing video.

The moon appears to dance in the sky, in a beautiful and breathtaking display, brought to life by the amazing project.

Andrew McCarthy, who is renowned for his popular @Cosmic_Background Instagram page, captured the full moon from his Arizona backyard, at a time when the moon is at its highest point in the sky.

The effect is staggering, and these fascinating videos show the moon appearing to bend and flex in the sky, an effect known as libration.

“There are two effects visible here. Libration is the wobble which causes some features to disappear and reappear on the lunar limb, and is due to the moon's elliptical orbit changing where its "face" is pointing relative to the observer.

“The rotation changes you see are due to the moon's orbit being at a different angle than Earth's equator, which is also what causes it to apparently rise and fall in the sky,” said Andrew.

Andrew decided to study the full moon for a year, when he noticed that it always seemed to change based on previous years.

Each shot in the series is a mosaic, captured using a telescope and the result of taking thousands of pictures.

This means that creating the overall effort for this sequence was dozens of hours of work.

He added: “I have actually been attempting this for three years, but only was able to capture one year uninterrupted when I moved to Arizona.  

“I hope these images inspire more people to look up, and find escape from the stresses of daily life in the serenity of the cosmos.  

"It was a real labour of love.”

An astrophotographer has painstakingly recorded pin sharp images of the full moon for an entire year, showing the surprising “wobble” effect in an amazing video.

The moon appears to dance in the sky, in a beautiful and breathtaking display, brought to life by the amazing project.

Andrew McCarthy, who is renowned for his popular @Cosmic_Background Instagram page, captured the full moon from his Arizona USA backyard, at a time when the moon is at its highest point in the sky.

The effect is staggering, and these fascinating video show the moon appear to bend and flex in the sky, an effect known as libration.

“There are two effects visible here. Libration is the wobble which causes some features to disappear and reappear on the lunar limb, and is due to the moon's elliptical orbit changing where its "face" is pointing relative to the observer.

“The rotation changes you see are due to the moon's orbit being at a different angle than Earth's equator, which is also what causes it to apparently rise and fall in the sky.” Said Andrew.

Andrew decided to study the full moon for a year, when he noticed that it always seemed to change based on previous years.

Each shot in the series is a mosaic, captured using a telescope and the result of taking thousands of pictures.

This means that creating the overall effort for this sequence was dozens of hours of work.

He added: “I have actually been attempting this for three years, but only was able to capture one year uninterrupted when I moved to Arizona.  

“I hope these images inspire more people to look up, and find escape from the stresses of daily life in the serenity of the cosmos.  

"It was a real labour of love.”