It's now 50 years since we went to the moon with the first moon landing by the The United States' Apollo 11 happening on 20 July 1969. And with NASA recently announcing that it plans to land on the moon again by 2024, we thought what better way to celebrate than with a collection of some of the best photos of the moon in all its glory for you to enjoy. 

• Staggering images of Mars like you've never seen before

Enjoy the range of inspiring images of our moon in all shapes and sizes:

DAN MARKER-MOORE

Moon over Los Angeles

Dan Marker-Moore snapped a series of 11 images in just under 28 minutes that captured the moon rising above the city of Los Angeles, USA. These photos were then combined into this brilliant nighttime composite.  A fantastic view over the urban landscape. 

ANDREW MCCARTHY

Mineral moon

It might look like some fairly fascinating planet way off in the depths of space, but this is still actually our moon. The image has been processed and had its colours highly enhanced in order to show variations in the lunar regolith - the layers of dust, soil, broken rock and other materials on the surface. 

This brilliant image by Andrew McCarthy (Cosmic_background) highlights the wonder of the moon and shows all the different asteroid impacts that have occurred on its surface. The spread of colour shows how far the debris is spread with each impact and the resulting painted view of history too. 

ANDREW MCCARTHY

Luminosity comparison

With this image, Andrew McCarthy wanted to demonstrate just how different the moon and our planet are when seen in terms of their luminosity:

"The full moon is depicted as this bright, luminous thing, but it's actually as dark as asphalt in the sun."

Our home reflects a lot of the light from the sun thanks to the atmosphere and at night it looks even more magnificent. But there's still no denying how awesome the moon can be either.

ALEXANDER KRIVENYSHEV

Supermoon over Manhattan

At the start of 2018, we were lucky enough to see the appearance of the supermoon. A larger than normal vision of the full moon that comes about due to the close orbit to Earth during certain periods. 

This photo by Alexander Krivenyshev shows that supermoon in all its glory above the skyline of Manhattan. 

NASA/GSFC/ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Lunar beauty

This is a view of one of the impact craters on the moon captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera in 2018. 

This crater is too small to see from Earth, but is one of many on the surface of the moon. It's thought to be quite young in the grand scheme of things too. NASA has dated it at around 100 million years old based on the patterns of ejecta and surrounding rays. 

Oddly beautiful considering the explosive damage that must have happened when the impact occurred. 

NASA

A distant moon

This tiny view of the moon, seen on the distant horizon of Earth was taken by astronaut Karen Nyberg. It was taken from the International Space Station in 2013 and shows an unusual view that really demonstrates how far the moon is from Earth and how insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of things. 

NASA

Total Lunar Eclipse

This brilliantly colourful view of the moon was taken from the deserts of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. It shows a fantastically colourful total lunar eclipse that happened in July 2018. 

NASA/AUBREY GEMIGNANI

Super Blue Blood Moon

This is another image of the moon, seen once again in its supermoon state. This is Super Blue Blood moon is unusual not just because of its close orbit to Earth, but also because it was the second time the moon had been full that month. 

This particular photo shows the moon setting behind the National Capitol Columns in Washington D.C. and was snapped by Aubrey Gemignani in January 2018.

NASA/JPL

Photomosaic of Surveyor 7's landing site

This image shows a photomosaic of Surveyor 7's landing site near the Tycho crater. The photo itself isn't that remarkable, until you know the history. Surveyor 7 was the seventh and final lunar lander sent to explore the moon. 

This surveyor landed on the surface of the moon on 10 January 1968. It was damaged shortly afterward and stopped transmitting in February of that year. It did, however, manage to transmit a total of 21,091 before that happened. 

NASA/JSC

Our home

In 1969, the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft managed to capture this impressive image showing our home planet rising over the moon's horizon. This iconic view shows the dark greys of the moon's surface and just how big, bold and blue Earth can be set in the backdrop of space. 

ANDREW MCCARTHY

An 81MP view

This incredibly bright and detailed view of the moon was actually formed from 50,000 photos using two different cameras to create an 81MP masterpiece. It's one of the many awesome works of Andrew McCarthy and another fantastic view of the moon in its full glory. 

NICK OWUOR/UNSPLASH

A starry sky

There's no denying the moon is stunning, but it's easy to forget just how small it is as a part of the cosmos. This starry night view of the moon surrounded by billions of stars paints a wonderful view of space in all its magnificence.