Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2008 August 5 Starry Night over the Moon Credit: Michael Zeiler (Deep Sky Colors) Explanation: What's up on the Moon? A dramatic starry sky fills this lunar landscape. Taken during a Moon transit over Cerro Paranal, home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) site, the remarkable picture was recorded at a little more than 10 miles altitude. While the Moon would have appeared much smaller from Earth, the distant nighttime scene is also impressive due to the many rich constellations in the evening sky. To get the true scale of the Earth-Moon-Sun system in the photo, measure the apparent size of the Moon. It is approximately 45% of that shown here, from the horizon to a little past center of the Moon. For comparison, Mars is very small, just 10% of the Moon's apparent size. At 10X, averted vision, the VLT can be seen at upper right. At that distance, the facility covers a diameter of 0.2 degrees. About 4 minutes of exposure time were needed to record the image. The Moon was near its perigee on this date. At its smallest, this distance is closer to the Earth's average distance, a critical issue for lunar laser ranging experiments.