In this image there is a huge range of luminosities between the corona near the sun and the earthshine illuminated moon and the only way to make such a picture is by combining the seven different images into a single image. Seven exposures spanning a 4000:1 range of exposures were taken within 2 seconds of each other on a tracking telescope with identical orientation. Such process is called high-dynamic-range imaging. The picture is a combination of 7 pictures taken from 1/8000 sec to ½ sec within 1 second. The software takes the dim part of the image from the longer exposures and the brightest parts from the shortest exposure.

This image is a correction to the lead image on the web page which shows the moon illuminated by earthshine but is inverted due to an error in the post processing of the image. See the talk page. The mistake was made when combining the images using both an automated process using Photomatix and then manually in Photoshop. When adding in the ½ second image in Photoshop to capture the moon detail it was inverted it by mistake. There is no issue of the images being taken in different orientations: a link to the raw ½ second image that was used is below and it can be compared to the composite image. The correct moon orientation is clearly apparent in the ½ second image.