Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[Andy Resnick]

M57 and surroundings:

Deets: Nikon D810 + Nikkor 800/5.6 @ f/8, 8 s subs, 21 h total integration time. Stacking and post-processing with AstroPixel Processor. Pretty happy with how this one turned out-here's a 2:1 crop...

Normally people frame M57 along with IC 1296, but I chose this cropping instead because that small smudge in the lower left corner, at the end of the arc of stars, is the galaxy LEDA 2024204. Within M57 you can also see the star Gaia DR3 2090486687506009472. Elsewhere in the full frame the galaxies LEDA 2029852 and UGC 11372 can also be seen.

Unfortunately, the major stars β Lyr, γ Lyr, ν Lyr, and ν 01 Lyr lie along the very edge of the field of view and including them in the final image would also mean including a horrendous border of uncorrectable stacking artifacts that would be very distracting.

 

[.Scott]

As mentioned before, I do a 2-hour walk every day - and in the summer, these walks are usually in the cool of the night.
What is very conspicuous this year are the satellites. I don't need my glasses to find them. I don't even need to look for them. SpaceX is, of course, is famed for their starlink constellation. But I know China has started launching their own constellations - but with no "darkening" tech. One is the Guowang megaconstellation. So, I am suspecting that most of what I am seeing is those new Chinese satellite constellations.

Oh yes - and about that T Coronae Borealis burst that I have been patiently waiting for. At this time of year, it is perfectly positioned for my viewing. So, if any of you have any pull regarding its scheduling, could we do it now? Meanwhile, in the southern sky, rumor has it that last month they had the opportunity to see two novae at the same time - V462 Lupi and V572 Velorum.

 

[neilparker62]

Delphinus: 26th July 2025 05:10am
Taken from (approx) -26 degrees S, 28 degrees E.

 

[neilparker62]

It's clearly not a star!

Yes - I have now taken a few pics of the same area of sky and the 'smudge' persists. So it's not some aberration of the camera. Also our light polluted but otherwise clear sky picks out very clearly neighbouring stars which can be identified from Stellarium. The "smudge" seems to be positioned correctly relative to these. Here's a recent 'try' - spot the smudge!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Sometimes it's best to image the moon:

Nikon D810 + Nikkor 800/5.6 @ f/11, 1/125s exposure. Image is a crop at 200% and shows several features of interest. Upper right is Aristarchus, lower right is Kepler, lower center is Reiner Gamma (the center of a magnetic anomaly).

 

[DennisN]

James Webb telescope captures one of the deepest-ever views of the universe — Space photo of the week (LiveScience)
Link: https://www.livescience.com/space/a...views-of-the-universe-space-photo-of-the-week

"The MIRI Deep Imaging Survey (MIDIS), the James Webb Space Telescope's take on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, reveals 2,500 more distant structures. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Östlin, P. G. Perez-Gonzalez, J. Melinder, the JADES Collaboration, the MIDIS collaboration, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb))"

 

[bruha]

Upcoming of Red full moon Satturday (Austrian Alps)

 

[Andy Resnick]

This is what happens if you accidentally leave your telescope viewing an alignment star (in this case, Albireo) rather than the target of interest (M27)...

(Image cropped and rescaled to better show the 'sunstars' (would these be 'starstars'?)

 

[DennisN]

(would these be 'starstars'?)

 

[bruha]

I suppose I got one small perseid last night (upper left due to Cassiopea) despite almost full moon ....
Lot of succes and dark nights

 

[Stavros Kiri]

(For Aug. 18, 2025)

[td]LAST CHANCE TO SEE TITAN'S SHADOW: On Aug. 19th, Saturn’s largest moon will cast its jet-black shadow onto the planet’s cloudtops--one of the final transits of the current season. The event is visible through backyard telescopes. Don’t miss it: The show won’t return until the 2040s. (...)

[td] ​

​

[/td]

[td] Above: Titan's shadow on Aug. 3rd recorded by amateur astronomer Philip Smith of Manorville, NY​

[/td]

[/td]

For more details, see the second part of part B) in this post:
Post in thread 'Solar Activity and Space Weather Update thread' https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...ace-weather-update-thread.923468/post-7275665
(...)

 

[Andy Resnick]

Since I'm not willing to chop down trees to increase my field of view, the only thing I could image for the past month has been M27 (Dumbbell nebula):

1:1 crop

Nikon D810 + Nikkor 800/5.6 @ f/8, 6s subs, 14.5 hours viewing time on Losmandy GM-8, stacking and post-processing using Astro Pixel Processor.

Not only is the nebula and neighborhood rather boring (all things considered), it's also hard for me to image well because of the low elevation (poor seeing) and nearness to celestial equator (which is why the subframe time is so short). At least the final result looks good.... sigh.

 

[collinsmark]

NGC 2903 captured from my back patio, Feb.-Mar., 2025. NGC 2903 is a barred spiral galaxy found in the constellation Leo. It lies about 30 million light-years away. It presently doesn't have a fancy, common name ("NGC 2903" will have to suffice for now).

Equipment:
Celestron C14 EdgeHD telescope
SkyWatcher EQ8-R Pro mount
Celestron 0.7x Focal reducer (for C14 EdgeHD)
Off-axis guider (OAG) with guide camera
Baader LRGB filter set
Antlia Hα filter
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro Main Camera

Software:
N.I.N.A.
PHD2 Guiding
PixInsight with RC-Astro Plugins

Acquisition/Integration:
Location: San Diego, USA
Bortle Class 7 (maybe 8 ) skies
All subframes binned 2×2
Stacked using drizzle algorithm
L: 300×120 sec = 10.00 hrs
R: 354×120 sec = 11.80 hrs
G: 288×120 sec = 9.60 hrs
B: 343×120 sec = 11.43 hrs
Hα:106×600 sec = 17.67 hrs
Total integration time: 60.50 hours

 

[Andy Resnick]

Finally finished this panorama around Gamma cygni, ready for print:

This covers about a 3 x 3 array of 400mm fields-of-view (14.6k x 12k pixels). All stacking of the original 10s subs and stitching of 43 stacks performed in APP. Zooming in (just) a little: near IC 1311

and my homage to this image:

Lastly, a 1:1 crop of NGC 6910, which Wikipedia calls "Inchworm cluster" but I rather like the alternate, "rocking horse cluster":

One interesting challenge due to the substantial amount of diffuse nebulosity was getting the color balance correct across the whole image. To be frank, for all I know I failed and you are looking at a candy-colored swirl of rainbow hues... Normally, I can get pretty close to what PanSTARRS DR1 imagery looks like on Aladin Lite. For this image, I get much closer to DSS-2 imagery.

 

[DennisN]

Very nice, @Andy Resnick !

ready for print

Which print service do you use, I wonder?

I tried Google Photos print service recently and got quite pleased with the result. Though it was mostly "normal" (non astro) photos, a whole bunch of them. But I also ordered small 10x15 cm photos of mine of the Moon and Andromeda Galaxy, just for fun.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Very nice, @Andy Resnick !



Which print service do you use, I wonder?

I tried Google Photos print service recently and got quite pleased with the result. Though it was mostly "normal" (non astro) photos, a whole bunch of them. But I also ordered small 10x15 cm photos of mine of the Moon and Andromeda Galaxy, just for fun.

I've used a few local groups to make matted prints, this image supports a print size up to 40" on a side so I'll need to price out a frame before moving forward. Not sure how big a print I want- 40" is BIG.

OTOH, have you ever seen wall-sized posters made from smaller panels? In college, someone had a view of the earth from the space shuttle bay that covered an entire wall.... that could be an interesting option.

Edit: these are called 'wall murals'... maybe for the office/lab?

 

[DennisN]

OTOH, have you ever seen wall-sized posters made from smaller panels? In college, someone had a view of the earth from the space shuttle bay that covered an entire wall.... that could be an interesting option.

I think I've seen such things.

I've used a few local groups to make matted prints, this image supports a print size up to 40" on a side so I'll need to price out a frame before moving forward. Not sure how big a print I want- 40" is BIG.

For Google Photos prints the minimum size is 4x4" and maximum size is 24x36".
And they have two options: Photo prints (cheaper) and Canvas prints (more expensive) (and they also have photo books).

(Source: New ways to print your memories with Google Photos in Europe and Canada (Google))

 

[collinsmark]

Saturn is approaching opposition for this apparition. It reaches opposition September 21st. It's easily visible with the naked eye, and you can see its rings even with a modestly small telescope. For the next month or so, Saturn will rise in the east around sunset (roughly) and set in the west around sunrise (roughly). It will be high in the southern sky at midnight if you're in the northern hemisphere (high in the northern sky if you're in the southern hemisphere).

Here's an image I captured last Saturday night. It looks like I was able to capture a bit of non-banded weather on Saturn. See the bright splotches on Saturn's southern hemisphere (look at the lower-left portion of Saturn's disk in the image). That's a first for me!

Five of Saturn's moons are visible in the image (Although Enceladus and Mimas are very dim and hard to spot). Starting on the left side of the image, from left to right:
Dione
Rhea
Enceladus (very dim, hard to spot)
Tethys

Then, just off the tip (in the image) of the right side of Saturn's rings you can barely make out Mimas (just barely visible).

Equipment:
Celestron C14 EdgeHD telescope
Skywatcher EQ8-R Pro mount
TeleVue 2x Powermate (a fancy Barlow lens)
Astronimik RGB filter set
ZWO ASI290 (monochrome camera)

Software:
FireCapture (for acquisition)
AutoStakkert! (for lucky imaging processing)
WinJUPOS (for derotation, RGB combination)
PixInsight with RC Astro plugins (sharpening and misc. processing)

Acquisition (using FireCapture):
Location: San Diego, USA
Date/Time: 2025-09-07, from 08:58.0 to 09:12.5 UT
(Midpoint time: 2025-09-07 09:05.2 UT)
Atmospheric seeing: mildly pleasant
Sub-frame exposure time: ~25 ms.
Acquisition video length: 60 sec per color, alternating R-G-B-R-G-B...
15 minutes of total acquisition time.

Lucky Imaging with AutoStakkert!:
Best 50% frames kept.
Drizzle/Resampling not used (i.e., Off)

Initial sharpening (after lucky imaginging processing) by PixInsight:
MultiscaleLinearTransform
DynamicCrop (to remove stacking artifacts at frame edge)

Derotation:
For each color channel (R, G, or B) 5 sharpened images were derotated and stacked using WinJUPOS. Images were then combined into a single RGB image, also using WinJUPOS.

Final adjustment processes with PixInsight:
CurvesTransformation
UnsharpMask
NoiseXTerminator
.

 

[DennisN]

Here's an image I captured last Saturday night.

Lovely, as usual!

I looked at Saturn yesterday when I and a couple of others were out observing and shooting the lunar eclipse.

A woman and her daughter came by (people I didn't know), and they asked if they were intruding and I said "no, you're welcome" and then I showed them Saturn through my telescope (Sky-Watcher Capricorn-70).

They were stunned!

I heard them loudly exclaim "wow!" and "that's so cool!" in excitement, and they told me seeing Saturn really made their day. That was really fun, and it's so fun to see others get excited by it too.

I will post photos of the lunar eclipse and our observation location below soon.

 

[DennisN]

Lunar eclipse, September 7, 2025

The blood red Moon, with stars in the background:

This is a "semi-composite" (background autolevelled but the Moon kept untouched) so I would personally not quite call this photo "fake"; photos of the Moon ("close up") along with stars is as far as I know usually not possible to do, because of the different light intensities, but it is possible during lunar eclipses. And the original photo does have both the Moon and stars visible; the photo above is one single photo. Gear: Sony A6000 + Tokina 400mm f/5.6.


Below are some photos from the observation location with various gear present.

We were three persons in our group, but then a couple of other persons with gear also came to the location (which we hadn't foreseen) and we ended up being six persons observing and photographing the lunar eclipse. We had very fun, and goofed around a lot!

From left to right: My Sky-Watcher Capricorn-70 telescope, my mirrorless camera and another
guy's smartphone on a tripod.

Me and the gear (my face blurred because I'm not that keen on being on photos).
The gear of four persons are shown here, but there were two more persons close by.

One person setting up his smartphone to shoot the Moon
through a spotting scope during the lunar eclipse.

My camera pointing at the Moon.


More photos may come here later .

 

[Borg]

Today's APOD - Up from the Earth: Gigantic Jet Lightning

Up from the Earth: Gigantic Jet Lightning
Image Credit: NASA, Expedition 73, Nicole Ayers
Explanation: What's that rising up from the Earth? When circling the Earth on the International Space Station early in July, astronaut Nicole Ayers saw an unusual type of lightning rising up from the Earth: a gigantic jet. The powerful jet appears near the center of the featured image in red, white, and blue. Giant jet lightning has only been known about for the past 25 years. The atmospheric jets are associated with thunderstorms and extend upwards towards Earth's ionosphere. The lower part of the frame shows the Earth at night, with Earth's thin atmosphere tinted green from airglow. City lights are visible, sometimes resolved, but usually creating diffuse white glows in intervening clouds. The top of the frame reveals distant stars in the dark night sky. The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remain active topics of research.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Lunar eclipse, September 7, 2025

View attachment 365285
Me and the gear (my face blurred because I'm not that keen on being on photos).
The gear of four persons are shown here, but there were two more persons close by.

More photos may come here later .

Very cool! Are those giant binoculars on the right side of the above image?

 

[DennisN]

Very cool! Are those giant binoculars on the right side of the above image?

It belongs to my friend. Actually I don't know what it's called, but it's cool, quite big and really heavy.
What's also cool is that it is from ca the 1950s, it has got a wooden tripod (I am not joking! ) and the scope/giant binoculars gives great views. It has two eyepieces like binoculars and it also has got built in filters (various neutral density filters or something like that, I think). And it is really steady.

Very, very nice to use, actually. But man, it's heavy. I estimate it to around 10 kg (I've held it), but I'm not sure, could be less, could be more, I'm not very good at estimating weights.

 

[Andy Resnick]

It belongs to my friend. Actually I don't know what it's called, but it's cool, quite big and really heavy.
What's also cool is that it is from ca the 1950s, it has got a wooden tripod (I am not joking! ) and the scope/giant binoculars gives great views. It has two eyepieces like binoculars and it also has got built in filters (various neutral density filters or something like that, I think). And it is really steady.

Very, very nice to use, actually. But man, it's heavy. I estimate it to around 10 kg (I've held it), but I'm not sure, could be less, could be more, I'm not very good at estimating weights.

Very cool! I ask because a while ago a friend asked me for recommendations on a 'starter telescope for someone who doesn't know what to look at' that he could take backpacking, and I suggested binoculars (something like the 25x100 celestron skymaster) with a tripod. He loves it- can even lie down on the ground and look through the binos easily.

And I am quite familiar with wooden tripods- used one when I borrowed a view camera. It was heavier than the camera!

 

[DennisN]

Another Moon shot...

I was out doing a test run with my telescope on September 5 2025 before the lunar eclipse on September 7.
Here's the final photo from that session:

Gear: Sky-Watcher Capricorn-70, Sony A6000, Rollei wireless intervalometer

Settings: ISO 1000, 1/500s exposure time, RAW
Workflow: 582 photos taken, individually noise reduced in DxO Photolab -> PIPP (preprocessor) -> AutoStakkert (stacking, 10% of the best photos) -> Adobe Photoshop (final touches)

I decided to not use the telescope to take photographs during the lunar eclipse, because I didn't feel like keeping track of the Moon continously; my plan was to take sets of photos at different times during the eclipse, and if I had used the telescope I would have had to manually adjust the telescope very often since the Moon gets quite big in the view and thus moves quite fast, so I decided to use a 400mm lens instead (the focal length of the telescope is 900mm).

 

[Andy Resnick]

I had to get up pretty early for these:

Taken @ 800mm (f/8), these are about 1:2 or 1:3 downsized. Upper image @ 1/60s ISO 200, lower image was 1/6s ISO 5000. Tomorrow I would have to get up even earlier, so.... we'll see.

Edit: cloudy this morning :(

 

[Andy Resnick]

We've had an unseasonal stretch of clear nights and good seeing conditions for the past week or so. Since there's currently nothing "interesting" in my available field of view, I decided to experiment using a 55mm lens rather than a telephoto:

In the (approximate) center of this image is NGC 6802, the bright star in the upper left is Vega and in the lower right Altair. Much of Cygnus is in the lower left. I can discern several Messier objects in the full-sized image, although Astrometry.net only returned stars. Deets:

Nikon D810 + 55mm Micro Nikkor (yes, macro lenses can also image objects that are far away!) @ f/4, mounted on Losmandy GM-8, 30s subs, total integration time 16h. Stacking in APP.

Lessons learned:

1) using a short focal length lens essentially eliminates effects of tracking error- I kept over 95% of the frames, and I could have kept the shutter open for substantially longer periods of time, probably 60s, if I had used an intervalometer.
2) using a short focal length lens means I have to periodically adjust the camera's aim point to stay clear of obstacles (trees, houses, etc).
3) using a short focal length lens means living with dirt spots- those faint round dark circles are from (presumably) out-of-focus dust on the lens- dirt on the sensor looks very different, by comparison. I carefully (REALLY carefully) checked and cleaned and checked and cleaned and... the lens and I couldn't find the offending particle(s).

 

[DennisN]

55mm Micro Nikkor

using a short focal length lens means living with dirt spots- those faint round dark circles are from (presumably) out-of-focus dust on the lens- dirt on the sensor looks very different, by comparison. I carefully (REALLY carefully) checked and cleaned and checked and cleaned and... the lens and I couldn't find the offending particle(s).

It's interesting you are reporting this, and I think I know what you mean, actually.

It seems to be a thing with macro lenses; I have noticed certain types of dirt spots on at least two of my macro lenses (Canon nFD 50mm and 100m macro, and maybe on others, I can't remember at the moment) and those dirt spots appear quite visibly in photographs.

I'm not sure why this seems to be the case with macro lenses, but the reason might be that macro lenses are a bit more difficult to do maintenance/cleaning on, at least that's my experience. So I guess few people are able to clean it properly, and dirt gets accumulated over the years.

It can be quite difficult to reach all glass surfaces in macro lenses - particularly the back side of the front element(s) which often are located behind a deep front cone which may have to be disassembled in some particular way to be able to get out the front element(s) for cleaning of the back side of it.

I managed to finally do it on my Canon nFD 50mm macro (I don't remember if I've done it on the 100mm lens too), but I had to search on the internet for a way to do it .

 

[DennisN]

A very nice video about the exciting Europa Clipper mission, which will arrive at Europa in less than five years (2030):

Visiting the NASA Lab Looking for Life in Our Solar System (StarTalk)
Quote: "Will we find life under the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa? Neil tours NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to witness the next age of space exploration: ocean worlds. Learn about The Europa Clipper, the research on the surface of Europa here on Earth, and some of the robots scientists are building to explore Europa’s oceans one day."

 

[collinsmark]

3) using a short focal length lens means living with dirt spots- those faint round dark circles are from (presumably) out-of-focus dust on the lens- dirt on the sensor looks very different, by comparison. I carefully (REALLY carefully) checked and cleaned and checked and cleaned and... the lens and I couldn't find the offending particle(s).

Have you tried flat frame calibration?

I'm a stickler for flats. Every deep sky image I've ever posted here I've processed with flat frame calibration as part of the process (planetary doesn't count; I don't do flats for planetary). I take new flats for every new target for each filter I use for that target. Also, if I ever do adjustments to the telescope's optical train (e.g., detach the camera from the telescope, adjust the collimation, etc.), I'll take new flats.

Flat frame calibration not only corrects for vignetting, but also virtually eliminates dust motes. If done correctly, there is only a slight decrease in SNR around the dust motes, which is not even noticeable.

You can take flat frames with a tablet (or a cellphone if it's big enough). For me, artists' illuminated sketch pads work great. Just point your scope/camera at the zenith and display a white screen on the tablet, and put the tablet on top of the scope. (See Fig. 1.) Adjust the exposure time (and maybe the brightness of the tablet's display) to get the exposure right around the midpoint of the histogram. Take several flat subframes and stack them. (I take 30 flat subframes per stack, but that's probably overkill).

Things that must be consistent between your lights and flats:

• Camera gain /ISO (this is debatable, might be okay to change gain/ISO, but just to be sure, I'm putting it here.)
• Focus settings. Leave your camera in the same general focus as it was for the lights.
• Rotation. Do not rotate the position of the camera relative to the lens/telescope between lights and flats. This is crucial, especially for dust motes on the optics. (This should be a non-issue if you're using a camera + camera lens, since relative rotation isn't even a thing.)
• Aperture (if applicable). If you're using a camera lens with an aperture setting, make sure the aperture setting is identical between lights and flats.
• Basically, anything involving the optical train. That includes filters and the like, if you use them.

Things that are OK to change between lights and flats:

• Exposure time/shutter speed.
• Probably temperature, but this one's debatable. If your optics change characteristics with temperature, it's best to keep temperature constant between lights and flats. But it's probably not a big deal, so I'm putting this one here.

You should also calibrate your flats with darkflats or bias frames. I use bias frames these days (much easier and far more reusable). This is to mitigate noise in the flats, primarily read noise. To take bias frames, simply take a bunch of short exposure pictures with the lens cap or dust cap on the camera (you don't even need the telescope or even a lens for this -- making sure no light gets to the sensor is the point -- whichever way you want to go about blocking out any and all light) and stack them.

Most any Astro-processing software should know how to incorporate flats and bias frames (and/or darkflats) into your process.

Figure 1. My smaller telescope taking flat frames using a cheapy artists' illuminated sketch pad thing.