Andy Casely

YouTube video by Peter R 2 Huge Storms have erupted on Jupiter

Peter Rosén has created another great animation of #Jupiter's storms during the 2024/25 apparition, made from thousands of amateur observations and projected in a variety of different ways. Incredible amount of work must have gone into this #planetsci [Credit: P. Rosén]

youtu.be/x1W_Ux_jgaE?...

You have been kidnapped and a character from the last tv show you watched is trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you?

Chances of survival... slim

The Copilot Delusion Disclaimer: This post was written May 2025, and the arguments apply to AI code capabilities at this time. The arguments around lack of competence are certainly likely to become less prevalent-while th...

“When the system forces you to code with a hallucinating clown, eventually you stop resisting. You let him type. You let him be "productive." You check out. You surrender your brain to the noise and just float.” deplet.ing/the-copilot-...

If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business.

You’re in organized crime.

Dust storm this morning, everything a bit hazy. Our periodic reminder there's a lot of desert away out west!

Images are red filter only, calibrated to be similar in brightness, moons labelled. The line across Saturn is the rings/silhouetted against the planet. F ring would normally be totally invisible, may be brightest part of the rings in images at/just before before equinox. Celestron C14, ZWO ASI585MM.

Sunrise on Saturn's rings
3 images 3rd-8th May (UT) - rings reappearing through Saturn's equinox on the 6th. First image shows the Sun/Earth-facing outer edge only, likely basically the F ring! (brightest equinox ring in Cassini 2009 data) Last image has south face of the rings illuminated again.

Edge on view of the planet Saturn. The rings appear as a thin black line that dissects the disc of the planet. The colours are hues of soft pink and grey-green

If you like then you better put a ring on it! 🪐

@deep-twilight.bsky.social got a really nice pic of #Saturn during the time when it’s ring system is pretty much edge on to our perspective. And a couple of Moons!

Really like the colour of the equatorial and higher latitude belts.

Thanks Rami! Those colours are pretty but a nightmare, some of the belts appear actually slightly greenish (and did last year), but normally green isn't seen much in the sky - adjusting this image wasn't easy and i still don't think I have it right 😬

Indeed - it is significantly easier to catch Mimas, and perhaps even fainter moons just now without the rings glare. It should also be easier throughout this opposition as the rings will be a bit fainter.

Hidden rings, 3rd May
You can see the rings in a longer-exposed, very heavily-stretched view! The ghostly rings are so faint just now that they are far outshone by 13.5mag Mimas (the fainter of the pair of moons on the left ansa). C14, ASI585MM, 6mins IR642nm. Sunrise on the rings is tomorrow...

Saturn, five moons, no rings
What a strange planet! Tomorrow is Saturn's equinox, a rare good look without its famous ring system, far too faint to see in a normally-exposed image, silhouetted against Saturn. Dione, Rhea, Mimas, Tethys and Enceladus too. C14, ASI585MM, 15mins, 3rd May 19:54UT.

Saturn's hidden rings, 2nd May
A snap of the dark side of Saturn's rings, only four days before Saturn's equinox. The silhouette of darkened rings cuts across the planet, and the full extent of the very faint rings themselves are in an overexposed and strongly stretched version. #astrophotography

See the Lyrid Meteor Shower the Night of April 21–22 The annual Lyrid meteor shower should put on a great show this year. Enjoy it with dashes of Venus and the "dark side" of Saturn's rings.

Thanks @astrobob67.bsky.social for using my recent dark-side Saturn imsges in his latest column for S&T! I had another imaging attempt this morning, and they were even less visible, also not visible in the eyepiece in fairly bright twilight. skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-bl...

That's brilliant, thank you Bob. Article looks good and informative too, I'm happy my pictures were useful to you!

screw it, let's give everyone a cluster!

inspired by @aussiastronomer.bsky.social's exoplanet handouts, every reply to this post will get a Milky Way star cluster + associated cluster fact.

I might struggle to keep up if this post gets >100 replies but I'll try!!

Yes please! I'm a fan of interesting open clusters 🌟⭐️

I did see them easily enough in 1995 visually with an 8" dob, (and guided by a really good S&T article about the multiple transitions between light and dark and ring crossings that year). This year the dark rings will be much harder!

Good question! No, not at all, though i have some hope towards the last week of April or first week of May when Saturn will be higher in a darker sky. The stretch was large on the digital data, so they are very faint and will need a darker background

Hi Bob, you absolutely have my permission! I've been an avid S&T reader since I was about 13, and I enjoy your Exploring the Night and other articles in S&T. Let me know if you need any alterations to the images (there's one typo in the IR-RGB, where the IR has the same on-image label as the IR-RGB)

A cloudy crescent
Venus on the morning of 13th April, lovely big thin crescent with the long horns from this hellish cloudy planet's atmosphere. Taken just after sunrise in good seeing. Celestron C14, QHY5III200M, 10mins data.

4/4 Saturns eqinox Jan '39, then we see the daylight north side till Earth crosses back south on 1st April '39 (retrograde planetary fun!). Back to the now-dark south side until July '39, before one last ring plane crossing sees both Earth & Sun on north side for the next 15 years! Cool, rare times!

3/4 If it happens near opposition, Earth can cross the ring plane three times! Happened in 1995, and will again in 2038-39. We get a dance between day and night sides of the rings - we see the unlit north side mid-Oct 2038 Earth crossing) to mid-Jan 2039, darkside tilted up to 2deg to us.

2/4 for short periods of time (a few weeks up to a couple of months). If it happens when Saturn is near the Sun in our sky, there's a single crossing of the ring plane by Earth - 2025 23rd March and Sun (~6th May), in between these dates we see the night side of the rings.

1/4 That's totally ok! Saturn's rings are extremely flat and thin and around Saturns equator. Most of the time, Earth and the Sun look at the same side of them, up to 27deg tilt, but near Saturn's equinoxes (when the Sun crosses the ring plane), Earth and Sun can be on opposite sides

Ghosts of Saturn's Rings
Exploring Saturn's rare 'dark side', when the rings are pointed away from the Sun, but towards Earth, and extremely faint! Low in the morning sky, the rings are a dark band across the planet and barely visible in a stretched view. A ringless Saturn is fun! #astrophotography

Plasma trees
Another little Sun set from last week, a couple of bright prominences, one on the limb, one a bit beyond the limb pouring material sideways. Both gone within 24 hours, even though they looked very stable. 50 minutes, 66 frames timelapse, Evostar 100, Quark CS, ASI174MM #astrophotography

Leap to (from) the stars!
80-min timelapse 15th March, a bright prominence detaching and accelerating to escape the Sun at up to 170km/s, 250,000km high by the end. I had to re-frame it as it got higher. 96 frames, 15s video per frame. Evostar 100, Quark CS, ASI174MM. #astrophotography

Studio Ghibli fan too?

In a vain attempt at a feed palate-cleanse, here's a Sun shot Sun from Saturday. I took a 100-frame timelapse of a big detaching prominence, this frame caught my eye - faerie, angelic, Icarus perhaps? Headless, in any case! Timelapse to follow. Enjoy 😊☀️
#astrophotography #solarsystem #solarmaximum