Neil Norman

NASA Teams Work MAVEN Spacecraft Signal Loss - NASA Science NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft, in orbit around Mars, experienced a loss of signal with ground stations on Earth on Dec. 6.

NASA lost contact with the MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars on Saturday.

They're working the problem in an attempt to reestablish contact with MAVEN.

There's no reason right now to suspect the spacecraft has been lost. It's just not phoning home when it should be.

science.nasa.gov/blogs/maven/...

Everyone’s favorite interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS crosses the ecliptic plane of our fair solar system southward today. This sets 3I/ATLAS up for its closest passage near Earth at 1.8 AU distant next week on December 19th.

Give us a clue, Maik. Which comet? 😆

Image of C/1956 R1 by on 1957 Apr 27 by R. Waterfield, BAA Comet Section, https://britastro.org/cometobs/1956r1/1956r1_19570427_rwaterfield.html

#bskycometography no. 357

C/1956 R1 (Arend-Roland)

1956 Nov 8: Discovered by S. J. V. Arend & G. Roland (Belgium) at 10 mag. Predisc of Nov 7 from Japan. The comet reached 1 mag around perihelion (1957 Apr 8 at 0.32 au). Max tail 30° and 15° sunward tail! Last seen on Apr 11.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

Situation of C/1695 U1 in the solar system at the day of discovery, https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/orbit_viewer.html

#bskycometography no. 346

C/1695 U1

1695 Oct 28: Seen first from the vessel "Le Floriant" in the Arabian Sea at ~1 mag. The tail was 15° at first, reaching almost 28° on Nov 6/7. Very uncertain orbit w/ perihelion on Oct 23 at 0.04 au. Definitely no sungrazer. Last seen on Nov 18.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

Image of the discovery location, Berlin Observatory of 1840, view to East after J. F. Encke, http://www.aip.de/image_archive/Institute.html, Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4164202

#bskycometography no. 344

C/1840 U1 (Bremiker)

1840 Oct 26: Discovered by K. Bremiker (Germany) at 9 mag. The comet brightened slightly while passing perihelion on Nov 14 at 1.48 au. Perigee on Dec 4 at 0.87 au. The comet was last detected on 1841 Feb 16. Period 250-400 years.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

Another mini-moon? Maybe. Newly discovered 2025 US6 is officially listed as an asteroid.

Unlike our quasi-moon 2025 PN7, this one is actually bound to Earth, for now.

Its orbit is pure chaos. Enjoy it while it lasts. It’ll probably be demoted to space junk.

Managed to grab a few more images of Comet Lemmon this evening (Sunday Oct 26th) from Kielder Campsite, Northumberland, through very brief gaps in the clouds. This is a phone-processed stack of half a dozen jpg images taken with my Seestar S50.

Based on analysis of TLEs, the Chinese Space Station
made a 3.2 m/s reboost on Oct 17 at about 0947 UTC

Image of comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) taken on 25 October 2025 at 20:13 UT. The comet is a bright green diffuse object in the centre of the image, with a structured tail sweeping up and away from the head of the comet. Stars are around it and seen as small trails due to the stacking process. Equipment and settings: Canon 250D DSLR through an Evostar 72ED telescope on a Star Adventurer mount. 21 stacked images at 10s exp, 420mm fl, f/5.8, ISO-1600. Using binoculars, I estimated the comet to be about magnitude 4.2, with a 3 degree tail.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) on the evening of 25 October. The sky was a bit clearer this evening so I got a better view of the comet and especially the tail. #Astronomy #Astrophotography #A6Lemmon

As of 5am EDT #Hurricane #Melissa is now a cat5 hurricane with 160mph sustained winds. Will cause catastrophic damage to Jamaica over the next 24 hours.

Best images of Comet Lemmon taken from the Autumn 2025 Kielder Star Camp using my Seestar S50. Looking forward to processing the raw subs properly when we get home!

Comet Lemmon, showing the slightly curved and broad dust tail, the ion tail, with knots and disconnections, and the green coma is still visible. Samyang 135mm f/2 wide open, unmodified Olympus E-PL5. 23x15s+1x25s (total exposure time 6m10s), from Eastern Crete. Edited with DSS, GraXpert, and Ps.

Comet Lemmon on 23 October, showing a very active and turbulent ion tail. Slightly different processing to not burn the nucleus. More info in alt. #cometWatch #astronomy #astrophotography #space

Description details: https://www.astrobin.com/kit89v/D/ Full resolution: https://www.astrobin.com/full/kit89v/D/ Acquisition Dates: April 5, 2021 - April 8, 2021 - April 13, 2021 - Feb. 4 - 5, 2022 - Feb. 14, 2024 - Feb. 17, 2024 Filter used: Optolong L-Pro 2": Integration: 4h 53′ 30″

🔭Messier 96🔭 M96 is categorized as a double-barred spiral galaxy with a small inner bulge through the core along with an outer bulge and about the same mass and size as the Milky Way. Is the brightest galaxy within the M96 Group.
www.astrobin.com/full/kit89v/D/
#Astrophotography #Astronomy #Galaxy

Image of comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) taken on 23 October 2025 at 19:52 UT. The comet is a green diffuse object in the centre of the image. Stars are around it and seen as small trails due to the stacking process. Equipment and settings: Canon 250D DSLR through an Evostar 72ED telescope on a Star Adventurer mount. 22 stacked images at 10s exp, 420mm fl, f/5.8, ISO-3200.

There is another comet visible in the night sky at the moment - C/2025 R2 (SWAN). It is currently between Aquarius, Aquila and Capricornus and shining around mag 7. It's quite a small target and doesn't have much of a tail. Here's a shot I got on 23 October. #Astronomy #Astrophotography

I’ve made a short video showing comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) as it passed perihelion in November 8, 2025 — which, by the way, it has survived.
It was observed through the LASCO-C3 coronagraph aboard the SOHO solar space telescope, and I think it went largely unnoticed.
#astronomy #comet

Comet Lemmon against a static star field

Another comet Lemmon image, taken on 21 Oct.

For this one I used my mono camera with red, green and blue filters to capture colour data, which I added to the main mono image to create an LRGB colour image.

Scope was a 550mm focal length Esprit 100.
🔭

Situation of comet C/1639 U1 on 1639 Oct 26, during perigee, https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/orbit_viewer.html

#bskycometography no. 343

C/1639 U1

1639 Oct 25: Seen only over three days and recorded from Korea, China and Italy. Close perigee on Oct 26 at only 0.08 au while exhibiting a "fluffy shape"! The comet was not very bright but rather large, typical for comets close to Earth.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

I'm only seeing clouds, so I'm left with such images...
☄️🔭

Image of C/1907 T1 (Mellish) of 1907 Nov 5, from Heidelberg Observatory, 45-min exposure, Heidelberg Plate Archive, https://dc.g-vo.org/hdap , This work made use of the HDAP which was produced at Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl under grant No. 00.071.2005 of the Klaus-Tschira-Foundation.

#bskycometography no. 332

C/1907 T1 (Mellish)

1907 Oct 14: Discovered by J. E. Mellish (USA) visually at 9 mag. The comet had passed perihelion already on Sep 14 at 0.98 au. It reached ~ 8 mag during perigee (0.41 au on Nov 11). The comet was last detected on 1908 Jan 22.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

Image of comet C/1985 T1 (Thiele) by Michael Jäger on 1985 Nov 6, left of the Andromeda galaxy, https://fg-kometen.vdsastro.de/pix/test/bild.php?nr=5559

#bskycometography no. 327

C/1985 T1 (Thiele)

1985 Oct 9: Disc by U. Thiele (Spain) at 13 mag accidentally on mispointed plates taken for 1P/Halley. Predisc image of Oct 8. It reached 7 mag during perigee (Nov 4 at 0.54 au). Perihelion on Dec 19 at 1.32 au. Last seen on 1987 Apr 3.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

A small dusty comet (240P?NEAT) and a few stars. 23 September 2025, 2:15 UTC. GSO N203/800 telescope with coma corrector, unmodified Olympus E-PL5. 46x30s from eastern Crete, B4.5. Edited with DSS and SIRIL.

Periodic comet 240P/NEAT on 23 September 2025. Much brighter than initial predictions, it features a dust tail which up to its faintest extremities is 25 arcminutes long. Currently slowing down as it enters retrograde motion. #cometWatch #astrophotography #astronomy

The orbit of Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS. Credit: NASA/JPL

Thought so. Another newly discovered comet could hold promise in early 2026: I give you Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS, discovered by the prolific Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System and announced earlier this week: www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iau/cbet/005...

Montage of SOHO coronograph images from 2013 Nov 28 - 30 showing the perihelion passage and subsequent demise of comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2014/12/Comet_ISON_disintegrates

#bskycometography no. 309

C/2012 S1 (ISON)

2012 Sep 21: Disc by the International Scientific Optical Network (Russia) at 17.5 mag. Very small perihelion at 0.012 au on 2013 Nov 28 lead to extreme predictions. It reached -2 mag very close to the sun & disintegrated. Last seen Dec 7.
☄️🔭 #CometWatch

A large prominence is currently liftoff near the northeast limb. Image by GOES-19 SUVI. SolarHam.com

Credit: Joerg Schoppmeyer

Credit: Paul D. Maley

Credit: Taichi Nakamura

We’re seeing amazing images of last night’s partial solar eclipse from around the South Pacific region, including these captures courtesy of Joerg Schoppmeyer, Paul D. Maley,
Taichi Nakamura, and Ian Griffin: www.instagram.com/p/DO4AySWk8KZ/ This was the last eclipse of 2025.

Astronomers found a dead star that might be munching on a Pluto-like planet Yeah, some stories are just cooler than others

Look, when you're a zombie star eating the entrails of a hot planet, sometimes you just need to cool things down a bit.

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/astronomer...

🔭🧪

Acquisition Dates: April 5, 2021 - April 8, 2021 - April 13, 2021 - Feb. 4 - 5, 2022 - Feb. 14, 2024 - Feb. 17, 2024 Filter used: Optolong L-Pro 2": Integration: 4h 53′ 30″

🔭Messier 95🔭M95 is a barred spiral galaxy about 33 M l-y away in constellation Leo. Star formation is occurring in at least five regions and this clusters contain 1.8–8.7 M stars and may be on the way to forming globular clusters.
www.astrobin.com/full/p648at/E/
#Astrophotography #Astronomy #Galaxy

HOLY DUSTY ICEBALLS!!!

Image of comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) moving among the stars. The comet features a bright green coma and a very faint ion tail. Equipment used: GSO N203/800 with TS GPU cc, unmodified Olympus E-PL5. 95x30s ISO 1600 light frames. Stacked with DSS and edited with SIRIL.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) in the early hours of 16 September. Coma has grown to about 6-7 arcminutes, there is a faint ion tail about 20 arcminutes long and possibly a short ion tail has started growing. #cometWatch #astrophotography