Bastian Blankenburg

A somewhat blurry image of Jupiter. However the cloud bands and Great Red Spot are clearly visible, and some festoons are hinted at.

This was shot with an old Logitech C270, with the lens removed and the cam stuck into a 1.25” T-piece of pipe, which fits into the focuser after some filing.
However this was more an exercise in repurposing equipment that I already had. Modern much better planetary cams start at $150…

Does anyone have a recommendation for an Android TV dongle that is 1) not vendor locked, 2) can be powered by a TV usb without data loss, 3) can work entirely offline, 4) with CEC, and 5) preferably 4K?

The use case is mainly streaming over LAN, with no internet access.

C/2024 E1 Wierzchos crossing Sculptor at mag 7.
A narrow ion tail extends over 5° accompanied by three distinct dust tails. Comet appears in the same field as the galaxy NGC 300, highlighting the contrast between Solar System and extragalactic structure.
ℹ️ cometografia.es/2024e1-wierz...
#astronomy

Great composition and shot!

“Kenyans on Twitter”, Kenya’s digitally active crowd (including but not limited to activists), also largely hasn’t moved from it. Even though most-used language is English, with Swahili coming in at close second, or the mix of the 2 called Sheng. Though Gen-Z is probably more on TikTok.

That’s probably a great way to get more colour in. However, for my taste, stars have been removed or reduced too much. I can’t seem to see the “eyes” of the ghost at all?

bsky.app/profile/data...

Olorgesailie III: Return of the Stargazers I’m continuing my catch-up posts with this entry about another trip to the Olorgesailie Prehistoric site. If you haven’t yet, you might want to read the one about my first trip there last year first.

Yes! night.ke/2025/10/26/o...

That eerie blue glow is Pluto’s atmosphere.

New Horizons was looking at the dwarf planet backlit by the Sun.

Pluto is the only object beyond Neptune with a known atmosphere.

It’s mostly nitrogen, but the pressure is just 1/100,000th of Earth’s.

#astronomy

Image: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

W3-JWST-3A-FINAL | NIRCAM #JWST Cropped.

I tried to extract as much detail as possible here, and honestly, it blows my mind.

Beautiful. Congratulations! I especially like the balance between the jellyfish and the surrounding fainter nebulosity.

I tried shooting this last year but after some 12 hours could only see the faintest hint. My unmodified mirrorless isn’t up to this.

The 1st planet candidate w/Earth-like radius & orbit transiting a Sun-like star bright enough for serious follow-up. Congrats to citizen scientists Alexander Venner, Hans Martin Schwengeler, Martti H. Kristiansen, Mark Omohundro & Ivan A. Terentev! iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... #news #astronomy

@kat-astro-bot.bsky.social

After more than a week of additional shooting this #astrophoto, I got ~21 hours total after culling (clouds, shake due to wind, autofocus issues…). Much better, but shows the limits of my old Oly E-M5 II; I strapped a Peltier cooler to it but it's no match for modern cooled astrocams noise-wise.

Elon Musk @elonmusk Hitler was a far left socialist. His party was called the national socialists. HotSotin @HotSotin North Korea is a democracy. Its name is Democratic People's Republic. B.Roll.Benny @brollbenny urinal cakes are for eating, it has cake in the name

You can’t tell me we have a functioning economic system when the richest man in human history is one of the most profoundly stupid people in human history

The telescope

A small version of Rubin Observatory's boot-shaped summit facility made of Legos

A small version of Rubin's giant digital camera made of Legos, including three minifigs performing tasks

A line up of Rubin-related Lego models. From left to right: the giant digital camera on a white stand, the 8.4-meter teal telescope, the boot-shaped summit facility, a mini camera on a yellow stand

Two minifigs with the old LSST logo on their shirts, with the real boot-shaped Rubin Observatory summit facility in the background

We don't just build observatories out of glass and steel around here...

Happy #InternationalLegoDay from NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory! 🔭🧪

In their free time, our staff have channeled their creativity into building a mini Rubin universe.

Which build is your favorite? 🧱

Yeah, I recommend not using the patreon apple app to join. Just go on the website, it's 1. cheaper for YOU to support your favorite creatures and 2. All the money you give goes to the creator.

Star Wars Celebration: Divest from ICE Star Wars is a story about the fight against systemic oppression, surveillance, and the overreach of a fascist regime. However, the company that produces our largest fan gathering is profiting from th...

For those that are wondering about ReedPop the company who produces Star Wars Celebration, New York Comic Con, C2E2, & many more and ReedPop’s affiliation with ICE here’s a link to gives all the details actionnetwork.org/petitions/st...

That's great. I talked to my neighbour too, and he did point some lights more downwards. However the total amount is still ridiculous, and he didn't believe me that more lights actually don't increase security. I planted the idea of motion sensors though 🤞

The answer stays #42 :

> For tonight: if you set minAltitude to 42°, you can confidently shoot M78 until it reaches that point without worrying about
the neighbor's lights

(Claude's recommendation analysing the impact of my neighbour's insecurity lights on my astrophotos)

#astrophotography

Looks like I messed up the colour balance. Or maybe the ICC profile assignment. Last night when I was manually balancing colours (because I had processed this in Planet Stacker X and Siril, i.e. without the usual raw processing), it looked neutral to me. Will post a corrected version later...

The Moon; a sliver of it is brightly lit, while the rest is dimly lit by light reflected from the Earth. Some dark details („seas“) are visible on the dim side.

Earthshine

#astrophoto

Awesome 🙌

Here's the most productive part of the night, gathered into a video. These are all still images, though. #Astronomy #Astrophotography

@kat-astro-bot.bsky.social

An image of the Beehive cluster M44, a cluster of bright/big white and orange stars in front of many mall fainter/smaller stars.

When M78 sank too low in the sky, I had the scope switch to M44, the Beehive cluster. This is about 2 hours of 10-second exposures after culling.
I used a short exposure time because the cluster supposedly has a mix of red and white-blue stars. However I can’t see any blue in my image.

#astrophoto

Wikipedia: „θ Tauri is composed of two 3rd magnitude stars, designated Theta1 Tauri (Theta Tauri B) and Theta2 Tauri (Theta Tauri A). Theta² is brighter, hence the pair are sometimes referred to as Theta Tauri B and A, respectively.“

You just gotta love naming in Astronomy…

A crop of just the central, brightest region of M78 surrounded by blackened background. The visible region has a vaguely ghost-like shape, with 2 bright stars next to each other being the "eyes". There are 2 other relatively bright stars in the picture, one on the back part of the "ghost", but I think this doesn't take away from the ghost impression.

But when you look at observation sketches instead, the ghost figure becomes quite apparent. See e.g. posts in www.cloudynights.com/search/?q=M7...
When I stretch my image minimally to just bring out the central nebulosity of M78, I get a somewhat similar impression. What do you all think about this?

By the way M78 "Casper the Friendly Ghost", many say online that they can't see a ghost. I think this comes from prevalent very bright (IMHO often over-) processing. E.g. in most pics at telescopius.com/astrophotogr... I can't see a ghost either amid all those bright colours.
#astrophotography

@kat-astro-bot.bsky.social