Man climbs volcano to capture moment Saturn slips behind the Moon, photo goes viral

At 4,207 m above sea level, stands the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. One photographer recently scaled this volcano to get to its highest point and record a stunning shot of Saturn slowly "slipping behind" the moon. The stunning shot reveals the Moon's surface as you've never seen it before, and Saturn--which is a reported?19.8 million kilometres away from the Moon according to NASA--hiding behind Earth's Moon.

What does the viral photo show?

I traveled to the top of the famous Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii to capture the moment Saturn slipped behind the moon. This was captured using a 14" telescope I borrowed on the island.
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Andrew McCarthy is a photographer from Arizona in the U.S., who recently posted a shot of Saturn hiding behind the Moon on Reddit where it quickly became viral. One look at the shot and you'll see why. The story behind the perfect shot is equally intriguing. Taking to Reddit, McCarthy explained, "I traveled to the top of the famous Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii to capture the moment Saturn slipped behind the moon. This was captured using a 14" telescope I borrowed on the island."

"This photo required traveling to Hawaii due to the local nature of these occultation events. It was actually visible from my backyard, but so low on the horizon it would have been extremely distorted from atmosphere. Going to the top of Mauna Kea was also guaranteed good weather, as it put me above the clouds. Instead I was fighting the health concerns being with less oxygen while setting up the heavy equipment. As a result I came back with the flu but I think it was worth it," OP explained in a follow-up post.

He also shared a video on Instagram explaining in detail what all he did to get the shot.

How did the internet react?

The photo was shared on September 22 to the r/space sub Reddit and has already raked in 81,000 upvotes and comments to match. Take a look:

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