Shaun C Tarpley Photography

04/07/2026

Absolutely amazing photos from the Artemis II crew while transiting behind the Moon!

02/10/2026

Delving into the hidden colors of the Moon for my first blog post of 2026.

Within the wavelengths of the sunlight reflected off the Moon's surface, there are hidden clues that provide insight into the composition of the Moon's surface and echos of its violent past.

02/06/2026

I didn’t realize how long it has been since I had an opportunity to work on any photography projects until I started a new, impromptu lunar project this week and discovered that I haven’t touched anything since this time last year. It has been good for me to focus on health and family, but it wasn’t my intention to drop my passion projects entirely.

I can’t promise that there will be any real increase in my release schedule, but for now I have the first image of a small project I’m trying to push through. While it may look like a normal Moon image, this is my first stacked image using about a dozen high resolution images at about 1200mm (cropped). It has considerably more detail than previous images, and it’s hiding even more information that I should be able to release soon.

#2026

06/24/2025

The images are in, and they’re incredible 🤩

06/20/2025

I have been working on this post for a long time (especially the video and diagrams), but I'm happy with the end result. I hope everyone enjoys this dive into a rather unique event that almost didn't happen for me at all.

Over roughly an hour on January 13th, 2025, my position on the Earth's surface, the trailing path of the Moon, and the distant orbit of Mars aligned for an ephemeral and unexpectedly beautiful moment of inescapable collimation.

06/19/2025

It’s almost time for the next piece of the universe to unfold! I can’t imagine the petabytes of storage and incredible processing power it will take to extract the data.

06/18/2025

A great diagram of how the Sun’s position below the horizon affects the sky.

04/09/2025

A great guide for star gazers!

03/12/2025

Here’s a weather forecast for this week’s lunar eclipse. Don’t be discouraged though if clouds are projected for your area. You only need a narrow opening to view the Moon, and the eclipse is long enough that the weather can change. May the atmospheric odds be ever in your favor.

ECLIPSE UPDATE: We're now at a point where we can start sampling higher resolution cloud cover data for our Thursday night-Friday morning total lunar eclipse. The snapshot below is from our in-house GRAF model at the beginning of totality at 2:26 am Eastern Time. Important to note, totality will occur for everyone at 2:26 ET, but you'll be taking hour(s) off depending on your local time zone. Take an hour off for Central, 2 hours off for Mountain and 3 hours off for Pacific Time.

Areas in red will have a difficult time seeing the eclipse because of overcast skies. Areas in green should be good to go.

01/14/2025

Lunar occultation of the planet Mars. If you look closely to the cropped image, you can just make out the Martian polar ice cap on the left side of the planet.