Is this animation showing the moon's librations a real capture or generated? In one of the answers to an entertaining question on Physics.SE about "simple check for the global shape of the earth", there is a link to this awesome demonstration of the libration of the moon: > ![Animation of the moons librations]( You can see the date stamp at the top that goes from Apr. 3 2007 to Apr 30 2007. If these are real, the moon should go through its phases during the month-long time-lapse photo session, but it doesn't. Is this animation a real-life capture or generated?

This image is software generated, according to its Wikimedia page:

> * Own work, created with "Full Sky Observatory"
> * Source bitmap for projection from Nasa's Clementine Spacecraft
>


You can see some pixelization happening at the very bottom and top of the moon. Another dead giveaway is the fact that the moon in the image is full for the entire month, without any change in its shadows.

(This, of course, doesn't mean that moon librations aren't real. For a trusted source see NASA, which has a similar simulator.)