No no, it is strange and artificial. The stars are comped in from something else, and the moonglow looks like a gaussian blur. Still, it's pretty, and has hopefully inspired people to go stare at the moon.
To be fair, most astrophotography is "enhanced" one way or another - I can spend hours screwing around with a single DSO shot after stacking.
Here's a quick and dirty 30 second reconstruction using a shot of the moon from last summer, acquired in much the same way as OP - except using an EdgeHD 14 with an EOS 7D in video mode. It's pretty crap as last year was my first foray into planetary imaging - I usually do DSOs.
Amateur astronomer here as well that has also done a bit of lunar photography. (envious of your EdgeHD 14...)
I made a similar comment about the moonglow, but thinking a bit I think it's a combination of:
- Higher dynamic range than the human eye (combination of stars, moonglow, and high contrast lunar surface both in shadow and in sunlight)
- High resolution imaging, and the digital signal processing aspect (noise reduction, deconvolution, etc.)
They combine to make something that looks kinda like reality but is really a mix, and maybe triggers a little bit of the uncanny valley effect.
To be fair, most astrophotography is "enhanced" one way or another - I can spend hours screwing around with a single DSO shot after stacking.
Here's a quick and dirty 30 second reconstruction using a shot of the moon from last summer, acquired in much the same way as OP - except using an EdgeHD 14 with an EOS 7D in video mode. It's pretty crap as last year was my first foray into planetary imaging - I usually do DSOs.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hYLJeb_pO9z2qNFwtux0q5Jix9D...