Every month, we will share an image obtained with one of the astronomical infrastructures of the LaSciL project.

Our inaugural choice is this stunning image of Earth’s natural satellite, captured by Eleni Koutsiona (Greece) using a smartphone pointed at the Skinakas Observatory 1.3 meter telescope eyepiece.

The picture resembles the view an astronaut would have seen when orbiting the moon at a distance of roughly 1000 km. Indeed, we can imagine that the round edge of the eyepiece is in fact the porthole of a spacecraft!

Skinakas Observatory is located on top of Ida mountain, in the Greek island of Crete, at an altitude of 1750 meters above sea level. It is a joint research facility of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) and the University of Crete. FORTH is one of the partners of the LaSciL project.