Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[Andy Resnick]

So many galaxies! Hard to imagine the scale involved. Could some of the "stars" we are seeing also be galaxies. Maybe just smaller or alternatively further away ? Can a star be distinguished from what might just be a more distant galaxy ?

I know! It's sobering to contemplate the vastness and our insignificant place in it.

I typically run the image through Astrometry.net to identify Messier/NGC/IC objects, but it doesn't get all of them (for example, UGC and PGC catalogs are not included); often distant galaxies can be distinguished from stars because (in my images) they look a little blurry. I haven't run this image yet, but I suspect there are at least 300 galaxies visible....

 

[neilparker62]

If you look deep enough into space and time , it seems just about everything you see is a galaxy:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/11/nasa-james-webb-telescope-ancient-galaxy-images

There are some foreground stars and I'd guess they're a lot closer than the galaxies behind.

 

[neilparker62]

Just a cellphone pic but managed to pick up 3 planets - Venus, Jupiter and Mercury. You might need to zoom in on the pic to see Mercury (or at least what I assume is Mercury based on Stellarium positioning) towards the top of the tree on the left.

 

[davenn]

If you look deep enough into space and time , it seems just about everything you see is a galaxy:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/11/nasa-james-webb-telescope-ancient-galaxy-images

There are some foreground stars and I'd guess they're a lot closer than the galaxies behind.

ALL the foreground stars you see are all within our Milky Way Galaxy

 

[neilparker62]

ALL the foreground stars you see are all within our Milky Way Galaxy

Yes - in retrospect that should have been obvious. Even the highest resolution pic of our nearest galactic neighbour, Andromeda can only resolve stars as tiny yellow dots.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Crescent moon this evening @ 800mm (cropped):

Deets: nikon D810 + nikkor 800/8, 1/5s, ISO 1250, straight to jpg. Maybe you prefer the 1:1 crop:

(1/200s, ISO 250)

 

[Razvan Mihai]

Witch Head Nebula, acquired winter 2026, with Seestar S50. Ploiești, Romania, bortle 7.
Due to weak signal, processing was a challenge.
1 hour total integration time, stack with ASTAP, processing and editing with Seti Astro Suite and Photoshop.

 

[Andy Resnick]

My final attempt imaging Hoag's Object (PRC D-51, PGC 54559):

Maybe you can discern a faint circular glow around the center dot. Deets: Nikon D810 + Nikkor 800/4 on Losmandy G-8, 10s subs, 13 h total integration time, stacking etc. with AstroPixelProcessor.

I'm not entirely sure this is a 'fail', I knew the apparent magnitude of the ring (16) was near the detection limit I calculated a while ago, but I was hoping that with sufficient averaging, I could pull it out of the noise. Remember, the magnitude of an extended object is calculated as if all the light is detected by a point detector. I can see a faint whisper of LEDA 3843622 and 2MASS 15173403+2134060 at the bottom center and 2MASS 15173523+2139214 bottom left edge, so that's encouraging.

 

[AlexB23]

My final attempt imaging Hoag's Object (PRC D-51, PGC 54559):

View attachment 372744

Maybe you can discern a faint circular glow around the center dot. Deets: Nikon D810 + Nikkor 800/4 on Losmandy G-8, 10s subs, 13 h total integration time, stacking etc. with AstroPixelProcessor.

I'm not entirely sure this is a 'fail', I knew the apparent magnitude of the ring (16) was near the detection limit I calculated a while ago, but I was hoping that with sufficient averaging, I could pull it out of the noise. Remember, the magnitude of an extended object is calculated as if all the light is detected by a point detector. I can see a faint whisper of LEDA 3843622 and 2MASS 15173403+2134060 at the bottom center and 2MASS 15173523+2139214 bottom left edge, so that's encouraging.

Wow, that is a great photo. Your telescope imaged a galaxy nearly 600 million light-years away.

 

[timmdeeg]

It has been an unexpected and pleasant gift at my birthday.

Teleskop: William Optics RedCat 51
Montierung: Skywatcher HEQ-5 Pro SynScan GoTo
Guiding: MGEN-3
Kamera: Sony A7III modifiziert
Bearbeitung: Siril: Crop - photometrische Farbkalibrierung-Graxpert Background Extraction+Denoising - PixelMath - VeraLux_Hypermetric_Stretch - Starnet und Kosmetik mit LightZone

Ort: Wachenheim, SQM 20,2
Datum: 25. und 26. Dezember 2025
Belichtung: 25.12.2025 - 57x300 ISO 640 ... 26.12.2025 - 43x300 ISO 80 - gesamt 101x300 8h 25'
Size: 5,96° x 4,2°

 

[sbrothy]

I can't get enough of this 'song'.

SYMPHONY OF SCIENCE - WAVES OF LIGHT
Symphony of Science returns! A musical celebration of light and how it tells the story of our universe. Featuring Brian Cox.

He's a good science mediator. I've never seen him in this role though.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Ergh... I stayed up way to late to try and image the Falcon 9 lunar impact. TL;DR: didn't see anything happen.

Firstly:

(Nikon Z7 + 800/5.6 nikkor @ f/8, 1/160s, ISO 200)

Here's where the plume would have been (300%), had I seen it:

But I did get nice images of Rupes Recta (200%, horizontal line in the center):

The embankment is 120 km long, 3 km wide, and 300m high.

Also some good topography (400%):

From lower left, going couterclockwise: Plato (crater), Mons Pico, Pico beta, Kirch and Piazzi Smyth, Mons Piton, Montes Alpes. The mountains are about 2.5km high.