The remarkable images of the moon with never-before-seen color and detail that went viral recently were created by geologist and LSU alumnus Connor Matherne (LSU ’17, ’19) and astrophotography collaborator Andrew McCarthy. Matherne specializes in color and has created images of nebulae, galaxies and black holes. The two astrophotographers collaborated to create the “most ridiculous” moon shot ever. Over the course of a single evening, McCarthy shot more than 200,000 detailed photos of the moon from Arizona while Matherne shot another 50,000 images from Louisiana to capture color data. Over nine months, they stitched together thousands of photos of the lunar landscape to create the high-resolution moon shot. They named the images “The Hunt for Artemis,” in tribute to NASA’s Artemis I mission, an uncrewed flight test that, according to the space agency: “will provide a foundation for human deep exploration and demonstrate our commitment and capability to return humans to the moon and extend beyond.” We caught up with Matherne shared about to learn more about his passion for space and photography.