Red moon desert

Red moon desert, originally known as Full Moon over Red Dunes, is a wallpaper included in Windows XP, licensed from Corbis. It was taken by Charles O'Rear in the late 90s, who also took XP's iconic wallpaper, Bliss. It depicts part of Kalihari Desert at night, with the moon visible in the left corner. At the same time O'Rear shot several photos of the same desert, which are available on Getty Images to this day. While those are rights managed, this photo is royalty free. It is not clear whether they were taken in either Botswana or South Africa, although they could even be on the border.

It was originally intended to be XP's default wallpaper, but was changed due to some testers feeling it resembled a pair of buttocks.

People have observed that the moon appears to be upside down, hinting that it is a digital composite. However, O'Rear has not confirmed this. It is also worth noting that the moon is not upside down on images related to it, and the image as a whole is more saturated in appearance compared to the alternate shots.