Sadly - this is a remnant from the Pixel 7 / Galaxy S22. Google never advertised it, but Samsung sure did and they got their rear ends handed to them for it. But the code remains to this day…
Astronomy 101 - the moon never rotates, so we see the same side of the moon each and every single night. So, Google quietly took high resolution images of the moon from NASA and put them in the system. Instructions? If the device is pointing at the moon, a little AI wizardry will stitch in those beautiful images to make it look like you are taking a picture of the moon.
Cell phone cameras are simply not powerful enough to capture even a fraction of the detail you get with this ‘feature’. It’s physically impossible - unless you have a telescope with a phone mount over the lens to take the actual photograph.
Samsung had to pull the advertising for “Moon Shot” when a 13 year-old proved what was happening. Kid took a picture of the moon and put it on a black background in the basement, blurred the hell out of it so it was unrecognizable, and took pictures from various angles and distances. Perfect shot every single time.
Maybe someday these photos will be more special if technology can actually pull it off without a telescope or AI. It will make the ‘magic’ feel even more real that you are actually taking a photo of the REAL moon at that EXACT date, and time - not 25 year old images stitched together by an AI algorithm…
