A NED graduate and amateur astronomer from Karachi made everyone proud as his collage of full moon pictures was uploaded on the official website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (Nasa) Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). The young astronomer’s name has also been mentioned in the picture which is Talha Zia.

The pictures are of the full moon from November 2016 to October 2017 and according to NASA’s website, the captured full moons represent “every lunation from 2016 November through 2017 October, as imaged from Pakistan.”

The amateur astronomer has been interested in astronomy since his childhood and joined Karachi Astronomers’ Society in 2015 to explore his interest further.

“They tell us how the size of moon varies during one year as seen from Earth. It shows the elliptical (non-circular/oval) orbit of the moon as confirmed from size variation, as well as tells us the nearest (perigee) and farthest (apogee) points of the moon’s orbit around Earth and hence explains the super moon of Nov 2016 and micro moon of June 2017,” said Zia while speaking about the importance and significance of the pictures.

The other thing which is quite interesting about the pictures is that they were able to capture partial lunar eclipse in the full moon of August 2017.

His images have also been displayed on earthsky.org in celebration of International Moon Observing Night on Oct 28, 2017, and Zia was the only contributor from Pakistan.

Zia’s achievement is the result of dedication and hard work and he has proved that Pakistani youngsters are full of talent and intelligence.