JulianSark
New Member
Hi,
I recently discovered this fantastic website and this particular forum got me thinking about an image I took about two years ago, back in 2018 and that occasionally has made me wonder since. I hope this isn't off-topic or belongs somewhere else but, well, the moon is kinda in the sky as well?
If I'm not mistaken, it was during a lunar eclipse preceded by a "blood moon" phenomena. I took pictures of the moon from central Europe, with an APS-C Sony Alpha 6000 on tripod with manual focus, and I later noticed that some of them showed two strange lights. I can probably dig out the original images as well, but below is a composite I made at the time of the entire photograph, with the two specks of apparent light in the inserts at 100% image scaling. The images were taken as in-camera JPEGs (not RAW). Of course, being a "blood moon" event, by it's nature the moon is rather dim in these images despite a long exposure.
One theory I had is that these might be "hot pixels" on the sensor (especially since in my recollection I was not using the function where the camera does a second exposure with shut curtain to eliminate any hot pixels), but then I'm also tempted to believe that hot pixels would be actual pixels. The apparent lights on the image, however, are seemingly composed of multiple pixels and appear circular in nature.
I'm not saying it's aliens or something. I did find, at the time, a Wikipedia page that discusses sightings of lights and other similar observations on the moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_lunar_phenomenon) but I'm still puzzled whether this is more likely to be an imaging artifact or an actual light.
If anyone would share a theory and weigh in his or her experience here, I'd appreciate this very much!
Best regards and stay safe!
I recently discovered this fantastic website and this particular forum got me thinking about an image I took about two years ago, back in 2018 and that occasionally has made me wonder since. I hope this isn't off-topic or belongs somewhere else but, well, the moon is kinda in the sky as well?

If I'm not mistaken, it was during a lunar eclipse preceded by a "blood moon" phenomena. I took pictures of the moon from central Europe, with an APS-C Sony Alpha 6000 on tripod with manual focus, and I later noticed that some of them showed two strange lights. I can probably dig out the original images as well, but below is a composite I made at the time of the entire photograph, with the two specks of apparent light in the inserts at 100% image scaling. The images were taken as in-camera JPEGs (not RAW). Of course, being a "blood moon" event, by it's nature the moon is rather dim in these images despite a long exposure.
One theory I had is that these might be "hot pixels" on the sensor (especially since in my recollection I was not using the function where the camera does a second exposure with shut curtain to eliminate any hot pixels), but then I'm also tempted to believe that hot pixels would be actual pixels. The apparent lights on the image, however, are seemingly composed of multiple pixels and appear circular in nature.
I'm not saying it's aliens or something. I did find, at the time, a Wikipedia page that discusses sightings of lights and other similar observations on the moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_lunar_phenomenon) but I'm still puzzled whether this is more likely to be an imaging artifact or an actual light.
If anyone would share a theory and weigh in his or her experience here, I'd appreciate this very much!
Best regards and stay safe!