Luna Coin - Eclipse Edition

This is the "Eclipse" edition of the Luna 2011 coin.

I designed this coin to expose people to the names of the lunar features. Many people know that the first humans set foot on the moon in the Sea of Tranquility. What many do not know is that there are many other lunar features such as the Sea of Nectar, the Sea of Clouds, the Land of Manna, the Land of Vitality, and the Ocean of Storms. These names have been around for a long time.

I wanted to show the names as a fantasy map. The idea being that the moon used to be lush and green, but that some great disaster reduced the moon to what we see today. The reality is a bit more mundane. Before our modern scientific understanding, people thought that the moon might be a world like our own and that the light features were land and the dark features bodies of water.

The back side of the coin shows the moon as it appears in a telescope. The data to produce the image came from the Clementine spacecraft.


The five editions of this coin are:
ECLIPSE – the coin is made of solid copper with a black wash and the red color in the seas is fused silica glass. The moon appears red during a full eclipse because the earth is blocking the direct sunlight, but red light is refracted by the earth’s atmosphere thus giving the moon a bloody color.
CATACLYSM – This edition is closest to what the moon looks like today. The idea behind the name is that some sort of cataclysm transformed the moon from a green world covered in water to the barren rock we now see in the sky. The metal finish is black nickel. The white parts of the coin glow in the dark.
SIDEREAL SEA – The word sidereal is Latin for “starry”. I picked the name because just because it sounds pretty. I’ll let you decide if the name comes from the fact that the moon moves through a sea of stars, or if it refers to the starlight reflected off of the moon’s seas. The metal finish is antique nickel.
RENAISSANCE - features 18 karat gold with an antique wash, blue swirl enamel, and opaque green hard enamel. I plan on tweaking the green to be a bit darker. The name comes from the idea that the Renaissance astronomers who made early maps of the moon would have used luxurious materials to make their maps and models, thus the gold and the pearly swirl.
GOLDEN AGE – The idea behind the name of this edition is that there once was a time on the moon when everything was better. The seas and the great ocean still teamed with life, the royal barges sailed through the Sea of Nectar along the Manna coasts, and the skies over the Southern continent were loud with bird song. The green and blue color is fused silica glass and the metal finish is 18 karat gold. This is a limited edition of thirty-one coins and they will never again be produced.

More information can be found at
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