Mike Christie

My favourite area too. I wrote to NASA as a teenager and got lots of pictures of that area from Al Worden, CM pilot.

Hadley Rille?

The Triangulum Galaxy is approximately 2.8 million light years away. A spiral galaxy with hydrogen alpha regions and numerous blue young stars.

I came across some M33 data from September 2024 and reprocessed it using techniques that I've learnt over the last year. 67 minutes total exposure taken with CFF135 refractor 🔭 and QHY286C camera at -10C. This is RGB only - no Ha added. #astrophotography

Is that straight from the Dwarf or did you stack the subs yourself? Great shot!

Just after. Looks like mid 2024 from this graph: www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/sol...

Sun imaged in hydrogen-alpha from Edinburgh. Solar disk is inverted which makes the filaments light rather than dark. Large prominences visible at 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock and 1 o'clock.

Solar disk from Edinburgh at 10:28 today using SolarMax #solar 🔭 and #Touptek 585M camera. Attempts at solar photography yesterday and the day before were frustrated by clouds - as soon as I had the scope set up and focused, clouds covered the disk! #astrophotography #heliophysics

Well, they say 60 is the new 40, so I've not made 50 yet on that scale 😂

If it makes you feel better, I'm sure I had studied Maxwell's equations, quantum mechanics, and general relativity before you started crawling! Oh, and complex numbers as well 😂

A comparison of two images of NGC7331, an unbarred spiral galaxy in Pegasus. Both images are luminance only, with 2024 being 22 x 300s in L and 2025 being 10 x 180s in L, so as not to blow out the core. The supernova is clearly visible at about 2 o'clock from the galaxy centre in the 2025 image.

We imaged NGC 7331 in 2024 with our @astronomyedinburgh.bsky.social remote 12" Murrell Newtonian 🔭 at #Trevinca in Spain. Last night we took some further images to catch current SN Ia 2025rbx, clearly visible at 2 o'clock from the galaxy centre in the right hand image. #astrophotography

A wonderful essay! I read it all the way through and enjoyed every paragraph. Telling a story is so important in physics communication.

I remember “spike to Spica” but either is great. Not come across the ice cream cone analogy, so I’ll remember that 👍

That's impressive for such a small target!

Last quarter Moon on 17 July 2025. The Appenine mountain range sweeps down towards the rayed crater Copernicus in the upper centre of the image. Clavius is prominent in the heavily cratered southern highlands, and the Alpine valley is just disappearing into the liunnar night near the crater Plato.

Last quarter moon imaged from Edinburgh at 8:10 today with #Televue NP101 🔭 using IR Pass filter and #Touptek 585 mono camera. Best 100 frames from 1000 frame video stacked and sharpened using AstroSurface, and levels adjusted in PixInsight. #astrophotography

The basic LRGB image was just under 4 hours: 11 x L, 12 x R, G, B, all 300s exposures. This image had additional Oiii data added to bring out the bow shock, but I can't find the details for that right now. Processed in PixInsight.

Tulip_X1 Sh2-101 (Tulip Nebula) updated with additional Oiii data. The Cygnus X-1 bow shock is now visible to the right of the image

We got the X-1 bow shock with the @astronomyedinburgh.bsky.social remote 🔭 in Spain. I’m away right now and can’t recall how long the exposure was. I’ll see if I can find the details when I get back. flic.kr/p/2q7pxG6

Great to re-watch it!

For me, smart scopes are great to put out when you don’t know how to long the skies will be clear, or to leave out overnight in plan mode. We’ve had some great results combining data from multiple smart scopes at @astronomyedinburgh.bsky.social

LBN 576, also known as the Popped Balloon Nebula. It's a faint supernova remnant in Cassiopeia with a diameter of around 98 light years. The image shows tendrils of red (hydrogen-alpha) and blue (oxygen-iii) looking somewhat like a balloon with the neck pointing to the upper left.

LBN 576 or the Popped Balloon nebula imaged over the last two nights with @astronomyedinburgh.bsky.social remote 12" Murrell reflector 🔭 at #Trevinvca in Spain. 23 x 300s in Ha and 18 x 300s Oiii stacked and processed in PixInsight using the HOO palette. #astrophotography

Mix for chilli (unlabelled jar at front): chipotles, Mexican oregano, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper.

Freshly made chipotle mix for chilli. Real comfort food 😀

Truly stunning images!

We all knew that anyway 🙂

What's that you say? You don't have 400 HD TVs to see the #RubinFirstLook images at full resolution? Fear not, surf through Rubin's view of the cosmos with the @vrubinobs.bsky.social skyviewer app!

Click the link to visit these little beauties 🥰 🧪🔭
🏄‍♀️: skyviewer.app

A truly amazing presentation of those images at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh! I got lost looking at all the details visible on the planetarium dome!

This is the best (probably about 100 from either 1000 or 2000) frames from a video stacked and sharpened in AstroSurface.

Me too! I've put the deep sky rig away until August, just concentrating on solar for now. Hoping to start LRGB deep sky imaging with the Touptek585M plus filters and filter wheel that I got just before astronomical dark disappeared until August!

Nice! SHO really suits this image.

👍 this will be a great image with more data - I’ll look forward to seeing it.

Here it is. I wasn’t familiar with it either until we got it with one of our @astronomyedinburgh.bsky.social remote scopes!

Hadley Rille is 2km wide, so that gives you an idea of the resolution. So the smallest feature on these images will be between 1 and 2 km. I’ve not looked for the smallest crater I can find on this image, but I did get a 2km crater with a 135mm refractor once, so I’m guessing something over 1km.

Nice. You’ve got a hint of the Cygnus X-1 bow shock as well.