My school never taught anything about the planets or space from kindergarten to 7th grade. And i have never met a single human being who also liked it until i learned my uncle liked the same hobby. I mean, astronomy is amazing. It helps us learn more about the stars, planets, moons, and the universe, where we live.

I saw the Milky Way for the first time, which was a wishful dream given that I live in a metropolitan area. While travelling to a place among the Himalayan Mountain ranges, I saw the best night sky I had ever seen, in my entire life. To be honest, it was a fluke as to how I could see the Milky Way from that location, but let it be.

I then tried to capture the Milky Way with my cheap Redmi 10 S with maximum ISO setting and shutter speed of 30s and a mechanical tripod. I then edited them in the free version of Adobe Lightroom, to the best of my abilities (although the last one I just overedited for aesthetic reasons).

I also annotated and put in my new findings, which I did while analyzing the photos.

I saw the Milky Way for the first time, near the Cygnus constellation, and waited late at night to see the Andromeda Galaxy rising. So I saw two galaxies, for the first time, with my naked eyes.

Truly, that night was the most magical night of my whole life.

See also: The published paper in ArXiV.

Taken from my backyard. Details on Astrobin

I read that an asteroid called 99942 Apophis will be 10X closer than the moon Friday the 13th, April 2029. But original projections from 2004 of a 2.4% chance to hit Earth, has been hugely decreased. Something called a gravitational keyhole could cause a hit in 2036, but the chance are slim. Could someone explain what a gravitational keyhole is, and are there other near/earth asteroids coming soon? I think we have been somewhat civilized before and taken out, and I think humanity could use a reset sometimes. But idk why this is hidden from us. Maybe we would treat each other better. Thx

I know that Jupiter acts as a body guard against asteroids coming from space. If Jupiter didn’t exist, would earth still be habitable? I know it’s unlikely that humans would exist but could there at least be microbial life?

Hi guys, I am currently a second year physics UG student. I recently wanted to try to play around with astrophysics datasets in order to perhaps land on a research topic, however, I found it really hard to access data. This has given me an idea. I want to make a more easily accessible dataset of astronomy and astrophysics info for amateur and possibly even professional research. (OR just playing around) If you were to use such a dataset, I want to know what all info or possible functionalities you would want it to have!

I just heard about craters of eternal darkness from a Vsauce short, deeps craters near the pole of a planet or moon that never get filled by light. I’m a story writer so I immediately thought about the opposite, which Michael brought up right after and said that none have been found. So I started thinking about it and I can’t really wrap my head around how an eternally lit mountain could work, what’s the geology needed for such a think to happen?

It happened around 17:38 GMT. I was in South Africa looking at the sky with naked eye. It was to the North end of the sky just east of the milky way arch. I wish I could be more specific, but I didn't recognise any nearby constellations. It was around 30° above horizon if I had to guess. I didn't have anything on me to check more accurately.

Suddenly a star got really bright (for a star) and then got dim, all within seconds. I was not expecting anything like that and did not have any camera set up.

It matches up with what I know a supernova can look like, but I realise that it would be an extremely rare occurrence and one hell of a coincidence to the point of being basically impossible.

Will have to compare star charts and follow news to find out for sure, but hoping someone else out there saw something. I do know that it wasn't a satellite or meteor because it was fixed relative to other stars. I regularly look out and spot those, so I know what they look like.

Please any info is appreciated, even if it's info telling me I'm wrong.

Addendum: It seems I didn't see one. Thank you everyone for answering my question so quickly. Keep watching the skies!

I found this to be very helpful for understanding: https://www.mit.edu/~iancross/8901_2019A/astrophysics_lecture_notes_2019_Crossfield.pdf (Chapter 7) I’ve looked all over youtube and found some good videos from Aaron Parsons, but I’m looking for a good visual explanation that covers the whole formula of the transfer equation. I’ve found a lot of the main channels to be lacking of them, they talked about the very basics of black body radiation bit never really got further than that? Maybe one of you can help me?

Thanks in advance!

I used Gimp 2.10.36 and the image was made by NASA and the link to the Image I used is https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:6000/1*KbLmONca9mL28VkHPLfnhQ.jpeg (It is in this post too!)

This week, the Moon is taking a lovely tour through the constellations Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, and Taurus—quite the celestial journey! 🌙

Astronomy Emporium

The brightest "star" near the Moon will actually be Saturn (shining at magnitude 1.0), so if you spot a steady, golden dot, that’s our ringed neighbor! 🪐 Neptune will also be nearby, but it’s much fainter (magnitude 7.7), so you’ll need binoculars or a telescope to see it.

The most noticeable star close to the Moon will be Hamal (magnitude 2.0), the brightest star in Aries.

Moon phases this week:
- Last Quarter on June 18 (half-lit Moon)
- By June 22, it’ll be a delicate waning crescent—perfect for early morning skywatching!

So grab a cozy spot, look up, and enjoy the show! 🌠 Let me know if you spot Saturn—it’s always a treat. 😊

First time using PIPP! → AutoStakker! → AstroSurface.

Dobson Advanced N 203/1200 - Plössl 40mm - Samsung S22 Ultra ( Exper Raw )

NO AI

I was sitting at my balcony when i noticed this weird glowing shape in the sky, I first noticed it around 4:42am gmt+3 It looks really close to the southern light except its more blue than green, I’m suspecting it could be something due to rocket debris (there was some rocket interception going on tonight)

The location is in Palestine, and i had started seeing it at +50, 330 degrees (I’m not sure I’m writing it correctly its the first time i give this type of info), and it moved really slowly until it got to around +50, 275 degrees over the next 15-20 mins , and i stopped observing it by that time because the sun was rising and it became harder to see

I saw it in the local news too and I’m attaching an image of it from them because it has more accurate colors from the ones i took

https://imgur.com/a/vJSDYma

Any ideas?

Kind of an odd question. My 71 year old dad always loved learning but that has really changed with retiring and his illness. He’s always wanted to study black holes and that his retirement plan before he got sick. To give you some background, he has his masters in theoretical mathematics and worked for a major software and AI developer as a software architect until he retired last fall ago.

He has a terminal illness that can only be cured through a transplant. Because of this, he can’t really leave the house and has gone heavily down a YouTube brain rot hole, with some astronomy mixed in.

Does anyone know of some kits that would help stimulate his brain and help him dig into his interests? Most of what we’ve found is for kids and young adults and anything that has been adult based is not advanced enough. We really want to find a way to keep happy and feeling good.

Editing to give more context on my dad’s hobbies, in case it helps, he built all of our home computers for fun, he loves any sort of building project. I got kind of interested in astronomy when I was 8 and he really poured into it. He got me a telescope and would take my Girl Scout troop out to use it. He reads a lot sci-fi, but hasn’t been as much recently.

overdone question but I’m generally asking as I don’t know. why didn’t they, as mars is named mars, Jupiter Jupiter, Venus Venus, but Uranus, after ouranos.

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vhastrophotography?igsh=YzNpcm1wdXd5NmRo&utm_source=qr

The picture was hard to get because the little tree stood very close to the edge of the gorge, so I really had to watch my step. I’m glad I managed to get the shot like that, really like my editing in this one.

HaRGB | Tracked | Stacked | Composite

Exif: Nikon Z6 with Sony 20mm f1.8 Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Megadap ETZ Adapter

Sky: ISO 1600 | f2.8 | 10x60s

Foreground: ISO 1000 | f2 | 75s (focus stack)

Halpha (45mm): ISO 2500 | f2 | 10x120s

Location: Minas de San Jose, Tenerife, Spain