{"id":920359,"date":"2026-10-04T14:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/920359\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T14:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:10:11","slug":"the-big-moon-plot-hackaday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/920359\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Moon Plot | Hackaday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you look into the night sky, you can\u2019t help but wish to bring the outer worlds to your doorstep. One of the best ways to do that is to photograph the Moon\u2019s surface to display in a frame. However, [Sebastian Lague] found a simple image too lackluster compared to something with a bit more style, such as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qyNWDzO6kKQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">plotted image of the lunar terrain<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Why plotting? Well, the Moon is not defined in the same way with contrasting colors as Earth is. The Moon is peppered with craters and differing elevations that separate regions, so why not build an entire DIY plotter from scratch? [Sebastian Lague] did exactly this with a custom algorithm to take the elevation maps and create vector drawings which are plotted on his custom plotter.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"1169908\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/10\/04\/bringing-the-moon-home-with-plotting\/i-tried-making-a-pen-plotter-to-draw-maps-of-the-moon-30-19-screenshot\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/I-Tried-Making-a-Pen-Plotter-to-Draw-Maps-of-the-Moon-30-19-screenshot.png\" data-orig-size=\"1920,1080\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"I Tried Making a Pen Plotter to Draw Maps of the Moon 30-19 screenshot\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/I-Tried-Making-a-Pen-Plotter-to-Draw-Maps-of-the-Moon-30-19-screenshot.png?w=800\" class=\"wp-image-1169908 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/I-Tried-Making-a-Pen-Plotter-to-Draw-Maps-of-the-Moon-30-19-screenshot.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"476\" height=\"268\"  \/>Plottings of Earth, the Moon, and Mars<\/p>\n<p>The plotter\u2019s design is simple on its face, using an Arduino and stepper motors, as many other plotters have. [Sebastian Lague] also shares insights into their process and iterative designs, moving from a level arm to raise a marker to a linear method. While the Moon plots are impressive on their own, why stop there? [Sebastian Lague] decided to plot Mars and then return home with Earth plots.<\/p>\n<p>While the plotter itself is rather simple, all the work behind the contour maps and turning the ideas into reality is nothing to take for granted. However, if you want a more complicated side of plotting, make sure to check out t<a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2026\/07\/26\/delta-pen-plotter-draws-in-multiple-colors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his multi-colored delta plotter<\/a>!<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you look into the night sky, you can\u2019t help but wish to bring the outer worlds to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-920359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}