The famous Earthrise photo was taken by astronaut William Anders on the 24th of December 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission. It is one of the most iconic photos ever taken.

The Apollo 8 crew members were Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, and were the first humans to witness the Earth rising above the Moon’s horizon. They made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis.

“In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.

And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Genesis 1:1-2

The large crater in the foreground on the left-hand side was named “Ander’s Earthrise”. The crater is located on the far side of the Moon and not visible from Earth.

This is a beautiful sparkly painting of the Rosette Nebula, also known as Caldwell 49. The Rosette Nebula is located in the constellation Monoceros (Unicorn), about 5200 light-years away. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars which formed about four million years ago from the nebular material. Stellar winds are clearing a hole in the nebula's centre, insulated by a layer of dust and hot gas. Ultraviolet ligth emitted by the hot cluster stars causes the surrounding nebula to glow. It glows in the red part of the spectrum because the powerful UV radiation strips electrons from the nebula's hydrogen atoms.

This is an orginial acrylic painting showing the Mare Humorum which is latin for 'Sea of Moisture'. It is a smaller, circular mare - the impact basin is about 400km across, and is located on the lunar nearside. The most prominet crater is located on the norther edge - 'Gassendi' which was considered a possible landing site for Apollo 17. The paintings shows the 'graben-like' features on the easter and western edge which are trench-like erosional structures which form as the crust is deformed. In the basin you can see the 'wrinkle ridges' which are believed to be caused by thermo-mechanical deformation of the mare basalts.