Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy has held a life-long passion for stargazing and capturing images through a telescope.
In 2020, his passion for the universe took a leap into space after he quit his job and turned his true passion capturing the stars into a business.
McCarthy left with a telescope from his backyard in Elk Grove, California to Arizona where he creates spectacular, high resolution images of everything beyond earth.
The hobbyist turned full-fledged space photographer now sells his photos online and is funded through patreon subscribers to fuel his passion for outer space, McCarthy told LiveNOW from FOX. He’s even built an observatory from his backyard shed in Arizona.
“In 2017, I bought my first telescope,” Mcarthy declares on his site CosmicBakground. “Today, I connect millions of people to the stars.”
The California native was inspired from a young age by journeys to craters on earth and stargazing through a telescope in the backyard with his father, McCarthy said. Moments that shaped his life and a passion for learning that he says will never cease.
His latest work encompasses a virtual look at lunar surface in great detail.
It’s titled ‘Giga-Moon’ because the file dimensions are 1.3 gigapixels. It was made using 1.2 terabytes of data and uses some 280,000 individual high resolution photos of the moon to provide immense detail.
The image can be viewed virtually online, allowing users to zoom in online to view the moon in great detail. https://cosmicbackground.io/pages/gigamoon-landing-page
NASA’s planned Artemis mission that will put the first woman and person of color on the moon is part of a master plan for humans to explore our solar system deeper. The next moon mission seeks to permanently settle the moon in hopes of placing humans on Mars in this generation.
Unfortunately, McCarthy says he simply won’t be able to capture the settlement or landings on the moon with his telescopes. The largest visible lines from his telescopes are crevasses and craters as small as a quarter mile.
To capture an image like that, he said, would require a telescope observatory that would take up a football field.
Still, he’s closely watching the missions and even journeyed to watch an Artemis test launch, which he said was unfortunately scrubbed.
Ron S
I literally must have the mind of a child… so many questions. It seems weird all the craters are so round like they were all hits directed at the center of it… You’d think with so many impacts there’d be some elongated ones or glancing blows with the moon being round. Must be different on a large scale… I have no shame obviously
Linda B
Good question Ron. I would never have thought to ask that. Nothing wrong with an inquisitive mind. Good for you.
Ron S
I wish I had a better understanding of scientific things sometimes, but I also think everyone is supposed to be unique and be contributing in some way. I also wonder… if the moon rotated like the earth would it balance the temperatures of it closer to earth? If temperatures were more similar could it retain moisture or support life more easily? Would this easier ability to support life cycles, grow trees and perpetuate oxygen or create an atmosphere? Maybe we should spin that sucker, put some fertilizer on it and plant some trees:)
Yeah, those craters make it look like it was bombed by something in its orbit or some kind of surface detonations went off, maybe to stop its former rotation or to position it… But I don’t know anything about no big flying rocks and junk so I shouldn’t think freely and speculate on the subject. It’s probably just meteors from the past that hit it perfectly square from numerous directions like we are told – we all know history has been recorded and taught perfectly and we shouldn’t contest it.
Ron S
Maybe after we get the moon habitable and looking sharp we can turn it into a giant nursing home for old people, it’d be much easier on their joints with less gravity:) , and who on Earth would turn down a free intergalactic space taxi ride to visit Granny or bounce around up there with some happy old farts for awhile? Hey, if darkness can plant seeds of evil I’m going to plant some seeds of hope.
