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​

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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.
Meteor-2025-08-13-0419CDT-IMG_6289S.jpg
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.

Meteors-2025-08-13-IMG_6247-Combo1S.jpg
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.

news.mit.edu

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 news.mit.edu
 
Any of the sky watchers going to try photographing 3I Atlas?

Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third known object from outside our solar system to be discovered. Astronomers have categorized this object as interstellar because of the hyperbolic shape of its orbital path. (It does not follow a closed orbital path about the Sun.) When the orbit of 3I/ATLAS is traced into the past, the comet clearly originates from outside our solar system.

Comet 3I/ATLAS poses no threat to Earth and will remain far away. The closest it will approach our planet is about 1.8 astronomical units (about 170 million miles, or 270 million kilometers). 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest point to the Sun around Oct. 30, 2025, at a distance of about 1.4 au (130 million miles, or 210 million kilometers) — just inside the orbit of Mars.

The interstellar comet’s size and physical properties are being investigated by astronomers around the world. 3I/ATLAS should remain visible to ground-based telescopes through September 2025, after which it will pass too close to the Sun to observe. It will reappear on the other side of the Sun by early December 2025, allowing for renewed observations.
...
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science.nasa.gov

Comet 3I/ATLAS - NASA Science

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

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

Screenshot 2025-09-04 204952.png
 

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.
Sprite-2025-09-22_00179-00181S.jpg

Sprite-2025-09-22_00102-00111S.jpg

Sprite-2025-09-22_00199-00201S.jpg

Sprite-2025-09-22_00052-00054S.jpg
 
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".​

1758821223939.png
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.

www.iflscience.com

"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 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
 
Comet 3I/ATLAS holds ~33 billion tons of nearly pure nickel, unlike any known comet or asteroid. Spectroscopic data show no iron—unusual, as nickel and iron typically co-occur in alloys.Its surface is highly reflective and uniform, implying a smoother metallic plane than any natural body observed.The faint glow exceeds reflected sunlight, with nickel plasma lines indicating active ablation and charged particle shedding. This creates a backward ion tail, but the leading hemisphere is oddly illuminated, suggesting unexplained self-emission.Magnetic fields exhibit regular variations, pointing to complex electromagnetic processes.Due to its iron absence, smooth surface, and anomalous luminosity, 3I/ATLAS is exceptionally unusual. Urgent further observations are recommended to assess exotic composition, novel physics, or artifacts.
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:dontknow:
 
searcher said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
searcher said:
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.
Click to expand...

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...?
 
Goldhedge said:
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...?
Click to expand...
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. (y)
 
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.
Comet-C-2025_A6-Lemmon-2025-10-17-P1C1S.jpg
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)
Comet-C-2025_A6-Lemmon-2025-10-17-P2S.jpg

Crop to show detail
Comet-C-2025_A6-Lemmon-2025-10-17-P2C1S.jpg
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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