I was confused when I first saw this photo, as I don't think I've ever before seen a nightside, moonlit Earth, exposed so that it looks like the dayside at a first glance. I wonder how many casual viewers actually realize it's the night side. A nice demonstration of how moonlight is pretty much exactly like sunlight, just much much dimmer. In particular it has the same color, even though moonlight is often thought of as bluish and sunlight as yellowish!

I've done several shoots lit only by the full moon. Doing long exposure, the images are as you stated not much different than an image taken during the day, except for looking at the sky and seeing stars.

I've also done video shoots with the newer mirrorless cameras and fast lenses shooting wide open again lit with nothing but the full moon. It again looks daylight on the image. As a bit of BTS, I recorded a video of the screen on the camera showing what it was seeing, and then pulled away and reframed to show essentially the same shot as the camera but it's just solid black. One of those videos was fun as we caught a bit of lens flaring from the moon, and you can actually see the details of the surface of the moon in the reflection. It was one of those things I just never considered before as flares coming from lights or the sun are just void of detail.

Thanks. Until you pointed out it's Earth at night, I had no clue what was supposed to be special about this photo (it appeared suspiciously pixelated for something 'high res', and neighbouring pixels seemed to contrast in colour rather than smoothly complementing as most photos do - but I guess that's random patches of city lights being captured by the camera). Cool stuff!

Something I haven't figured out is: what is that yellow/whitish smudge toward the center of the earth? It looks like camera glare or a reflection?

It explains why the image is so grainy. At first I was confused what that stripe to the left and the bottom was. But it’s just the window edge, and the noise isn’t stars.

It’s a remarkable photo. You can see the aurora Australis at the top right of the image (it’s upside down, if there is such a thing - that’s the straits of Gibraltar at the lower left, and the Sahara above it - and the skein of atmosphere wrapping the entire planet. Those look like noctilucent clouds in the north, or possibly more aurora.

> even though moonlight is often thought of as bluish and sunlight as yellowish!

Is that... true? Sunlight is seen as yellow, of course, but the moon is usually thought of as white.

Moonlight is reflected sunlight.