It is well known that the Easter date is connected with Astronomy, as it is defined as the first Sunday after the Full Moon that follows the March equinox. This year, although not exactly a Full Moon at perigee (popularly referred to as Super Moon), the Easter Full Moon was very close to this orbit’s perigee. At the moment the data that resulted in this image was acquired, it was at a distance of about 361 thousand km, and 99,8% illuminated.
In this image, the faint colors of the lunar surface were considerably enhanced in post-processing in order to make them more apparent, revealing the patterns of different chemical elements that make the lunar regolith, producing what has been recently called a “Mineral Moon”. I opted not to go too far on that, though.
Equipment:
Telescope: Celestron NexStar 8 SE
Mount: Skywatcher Equatorial HEQ5 Pro
Camera: QHY183C
Accessories: L filter and Antares f/6.3 focal reducer
Even with the focal reducer and the relatively big sensor of the camera, it took 4 video captures to encompass the whole lunar disk. The stacked images were then combined into a 4-panel mosaic and then post-processed.
The original size of the image was about 7200×6300 pixels. It was reduced to 1500×1300 to be submitted here.
The videos were captured from 04:22 to 04:27 UT, 29 March 2021.