A Different Moon
I took a picture of the Moon on June 9th 2014.
[1] Then I chose a vantage point some 280*10^3 km from Earth, same Earth-Moon distance, analog to a 75 degree (5/24) lunar rotation. The phase of the Moon was important: there was enough visible surface to perform the 3D rotation
[2], but the terminator was away enough from the circumference to not show significant errors due to the data loss inherent to the projection of those regions. The far side of the Moon is well in view but dark, so lack of data is not an issue here
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
I rotated the sphere with my home brewed software written in PHP/GD. I also made an animation depicting us moving away from Earth and thus seeing the Moon as if it were rotating
[3].
Do note the Copernicus between 2 and 3 o'clock and Tycho on the margin at about 4-5 o'clock.
Hungarian article with lots of pictures:
http://www.radiocluj.ro/blog/messzelato/nem-foldi-hold/
Although this is not a photograph per se, this is as close as we can get to see (to have the impression) that the Moon rotates
[4], without leaving Earth
[5].
Copyright: Pál VÁRADI NAGY