Astronomy pictures thread

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The Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight/tomorrow morning. Bright moonlight will wash out most of them but the better ones should shine through.

Last night I managed to capture 6 on video in a little over a half hour which is a pretty good rate already. Hoping I can catch a fireball tonight/tomorrow morning to make up for the moonlight.
 
foolsgold said:
Looks like the game Tetris.
Click to expand...
I can see that! That night they were very conveniently placed. I did a similar stack of my sprites from 8/5 but it did not turn out as well since all of the sprites were in one of 2 areas which is more typical.
Goldhedge said:
Curiosity got me...

What Is a Sprite? Earth's Super Rare Red Lightning Explained​

Click to expand...
Nice. I am currently working on a video to explain red sprites. I get a lot of questions when I post them.
 
My favorite frame from this morning. 2 nice Perseid meteors in one 6 second exposure.

Camera: Canon EOS 850D (Modified)
Lens: Sigma 24mm f/1.4 art lens
Exposure: 6sec at f/2 and ISO 1600
Processed using PixInsight and NoiseXTerminator
 
Composite image of meteors from the Perseid meteor shower.


Camera: Canon EOS 850 D (modified)
Lens: Sigma 24mm f/1.4 art
Exposure: Multiple 6sec exposures at F/2 and ISO 1600
Registered using PixInsight and processed using PixInsight and StarXterminator
 
Came across this by accident. Thought it would be a nice bump.

Astronomers detect the brightest fast radio burst of all time

Astronomers detected the brightest fast radio burst ever seen. The dazzling “RBFLOAT” radio burst, originating nearby in the Ursa Major constellation, offers the clearest view yet of the environment around these mysterious flashes.
news.mit.edu
 
Any of the sky watchers going to try photographing 3I Atlas?


Comet 3I/ATLAS - NASA Science

News About Comet 3I/ATLAS First Sighting
science.nasa.gov

 
foolsgold said:
I already did post - #716
Click to expand...

Nice! I had missed it earlier. NASA says it's inside the orbit of Jupiter now. I was wondering if it's possible to get better (ie. close up, better resolution) imagery of it than the distant dot photos that are currently available? Or does it just move too fast to allow for that?
 
I would have evaluate it's position again and yes it's moving fast.
 

This Is What Venus REALLY Looks Like (No CGI, No Filters)​

None of these images are beautiful in the traditional sense. They’re not made to impress. They’re made to reveal. And that’s what makes them so powerful.

You’re not looking at a digital render. You’re not looking at a filtered approximation. You’re looking at Venus as it actually is, in all its alien, hostile, violently active detail.

And the more we look… the more we find.

0:00 Intro
0:26 The First to See Venus: Soviet Venera Landers
3:38 How Radar Gave Us a Map of Venus
7:45 When Telescopes Started Bouncing Radar
11:50 Parker Solar Probe Captures Venus in Visible Light
16:00 Signs of a Living Planet: Venus May Still Be Erupting
19:32 Breaking Down the Images: What You're Really Seeing
23:53 What Comes Next?

Now, we have the tools to figure out what happened. And for the first time, we’re in a position to get real answers.
25
 
foolsgold said:
I would have evaluate it's position again and yes it's moving fast.
Click to expand...
3I/Atlas will be in a position where I can image it again in the January 2026 timeframe, as it's leaving our solar system.
 
I wish the media would stop all the horsesh!t. Scientists know where it is and where it's going. How else would I image it? They know the path it will take, there are no surprises.

 

The First and Only Photos From Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon - What Did We See? (4K)​

Only one spacecraft has ever returned photographs from the surface of Titan, Saturn's mysterious gas-covered moon. Titan doesn’t make it easy though, below its clouds is a frigid surface where mountains are made of water ice frozen harder than granite. Titan is also the only other world in the solar system where liquid flows across its landscape. But this is not water as we know it, instead, liquid methane creates vast seas, lakes and rivers. The European Space Agency's, Huygens probe is the only spacecraft to ever land on Titan, and what it observed is truly incredible. Here are the only photos we have from the surface of Titan.
8
 
Some red sprites from last night.

Red sprites are an upper atmosphere space weather phenomena that occur above some very powerful lightning strikes.

These were captured from southern Minnesota looking above storms that were over Iowa.

This one I saw visually. It looked like a colorless puff of light due to the way our eyes perceive color in low light.






 
any of you guys watching this?

"Major Anomaly" As Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Measured To Be Over 33 Billion Tons​

Measuring the object's non-gravitational acceleration, the team believes they found something "anomalous".​


Interstellar object 3I/Atlas zips past a dense star field.
Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Meech (IfA/U. Hawaii). Image Processing: Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

A new study has attempted to pin down the properties of interstellar comet 3I/Atlas, finding it is "anomalously massive" at around 33 billion tons.

On July 1, 2025, astronomers spotted an object moving through the Solar System at nearly twice the velocity of previous interstellar visitors ‘Oumuamua and Comet Borisov. The object, which was confirmed to be an interstellar comet with its own dusty coma, and suspected to be far larger than the previous two, with a then-estimated nucleus (the rocky part of the comet, excluding its coma) of around 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles).

Sizing comets is a tricky business, primarily because to do so, you need to distinguish the comet from its coma. As comets approach the Sun in their orbit and heat up, they outgas, losing gas and later (when they are even closer to the Sun) dust, which forms their distinctive trail or coma. This outgassing acts like a thruster, slightly altering the trajectory, rotation, and speed of the comet.

"Major Anomaly" As Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Measured To Be Over 33 Billion Tons

Measuring the object's non-gravitational acceleration, the team believes they found something "anomalous".
www.iflscience.com
 

The Unbelievable Discovery Zhurong Just Made on Mars​


China’s Zhurong rover has found evidence of ancient oceans on Mars.

Mars might once have had the most beautiful beaches in our solar system. For decades, the idea of ancient Martian oceans has been a theory, but now, a stunning new discovery has changed everything. The Zhurong rover has uncovered the first definitive proof of a long-lost ocean on Mars, complete with waves and tides. This discovery is fundamentally reshaping our understanding of the Red Planet, and could finally guide us to where we might find signs of life beyond Earth.▀▀▀▀▀▀

0:00 Did Mars Have Oceans?
1:44 Water on Mars
4:21 The Zhurong Rover Mission
10:57 Zhurong’s Discovery
13:27 Faint Young Sun Paradox
16:38 Return to Mars
 
I enjoyed the music in this. Good fit for the thread.

EricTheCat - Dark Path​


Don't worry, I have no plans to quit my day job to make music.
Just a song I wrote a few years ago. This is an unfinished version that had no planning.
There are at least a couple mistakes in the solo. It was made up as I went along in this recording.
 

ASTRONOMERS SPOT THE SMALLEST DARK OBJECT EVER - AND IT’S 10 BILLION LIGHT-YEARS AWAY

You can’t see it. You can’t touch it. But it just bent starlight across the universe.

Astronomers have used gravitational lensing - nature’s own magnifying trick - to detect the smallest dark object ever found: a mass roughly a million times heavier than our Sun, hiding 10 billion light-years away, when the cosmos was barely half its current age.

The discovery came from a fusion of radio telescopes across continents - the Keck, EVN, GBT, and VLBA - and a pinch-shaped distortion in a distant radio arc that betrayed an invisible clump of matter.

No light in any wavelength. No heat. No trace. Just gravity.

This ghostly object pushes the limits of detection a hundredfold, offering rare proof that dark matter isn’t smooth - it’s clumpy, as predicted by cold dark matter theory.

Somewhere in that cosmic shadow lies a hint of what most of the universe is made of. And for once, science just caught it in the act of not existing.

Source: Keck, EVN, GBT, VLBA, Nature Astronomy
 


 
Hey thanks Searcher. I appreciate that. You're one of 2 people that have complimented me on this. lol. Most of my songs are far less soft but a friend encouraged me to upload it so I did.
 
Very nice piece! Those weren't 'mistakes'... call it 'Jazz'! LOL

Only one suggestion is to bring the voice out front, or 'on top' with a wee bit of reverb (if you have it)? No reverb? Sing in the bathroom! LOL

Not sure of your set up, but distance from the microphone usually works best? I'm an acoustic guitar player so I can lighten my touch and it quiets down the guitar. Not sure how one does that on electric? It seems from my pea brain understanding of 'electric' is because of amplification, it's always on...?
 
Thanks! I was using a loop pedal with an effects pedal for reverb on the guitar and just a microphone going to a mixer. I don't have a real setup to do any post mixing so this was just how it came out.

I will keep those tips in mind.
 
C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) last night

A quick process on an average combine aligned on the comet to show star trails. I am working on another version with the stars stacked separately.

Camera: Canon Rebel T8i (modified)
Lens: Canon 100-400 zoom lens at 100mm
Exposure: 159x15sec (39min 45sec total) at f/4.6 and ISO 3200
Processed using PixInsight and NoiseXterminator
Crop to show detail
 
Same data as above with the stars and comet stacked separately to avoid trailing.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon)


Crop to show detail

Camera: Canon Rebel T8i (modified)
Lens: Canon 100-400 zoom lens at 100mm
Exposure: 159x15sec (39min 45sec total) at f/4.6 and ISO 3200
Processed using PixInsight and NoiseXterminator
 
The Heart Nebula taken 10/16 & 10/19. Nine hours of 10 minutes image in Ha, Oiii and Sii with narrowband filters.

 

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