Astronomy Live
astronomylive.bsky.social
Astronomy Live
@astronomylive.bsky.social
Amateur astronomer and neuroscientist, opinions are my own, please don't harass my employer
#3I/ATLAS on Saturday morning. I stacked a total of 20 frames 2 minutes long binned 2x2 from my ST-2000XCM SBIG, which was attached to an AO-7 and 8" LX200 classic. A prominent sun facing jet can be seen along with a hint of the tail facing away from the sun and a jet 90 degrees to the side. #comet
November 25, 2025 at 12:56 PM
I recorded a 4 hour time lapse of the moon to show how the shadows change along the lunar terminator. The lunar libration was enough to create a 3D stereo image to see the shape of the moon and the terrain. Be sure to check it out if you have 3D glasses or a VR headset! #VR
youtu.be/vtygobDfPZ0
Viewing the Moon in 3D!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
youtu.be
November 8, 2025 at 12:16 PM
C/2025 A6 Lemmon tonight
October 25, 2025 at 2:53 AM
Flight 11 Starship from the ground and from the vehicle itself. Note that you can see the same "pleated" effect on the exhaust in both pictures. Ground picture is a single frame from the Blackmagic camera on an 11" Celestron NexStar GPS telescope.
#spacex #starship
October 18, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Here is my 4K telescopic tracking footage of #SpaceX Starship from Florida during flight 11 last night!
youtu.be/Kspmn3YUqpI
The vehicle and exhaust were illuminated by the sun while twilight was fading here in Florida, the perfect timing for a gorgeous "jellyfish" effect!
SpaceX Starship Flight 11 From Florida!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
youtu.be
October 14, 2025 at 11:16 AM
#SpaceX Starship engine shutdown as seen with an 11" Celestron NexStar GPS in Florida tonight. Full 4K video coming soon.
October 14, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Thank you to @flightclub.io for your trajectory data that enabled me to track Starship during a beautiful sunlit launch as twilight faded here in Florida! 4K footage coming soon!
October 14, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Fantastic work here putting together the data from Perseverance of 3I/ATLAS.
Last night, NASA's Perseverance rover looked up at the night sky once more, to capture interstellar #comet 3I/Atlas flying by the red planet.

The distance was "only" 0.2 AU or 30 Mio km, far closer than the comet ever got to Earth. 🔭 #3IAtlas

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß
October 4, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Just got my negatives back from my latest roll of manually guided film astrophotography. For some reason trying to post these pics on the bird app got my account locked and labeled for "inauthentic behavior." Hard to get more authentic #astrophotography than manually guided #film.
October 4, 2025 at 12:40 AM
By combining old tech (film, manual guiding) with new techniques and tech (bracketing exposures for HDR, AI denoising, generalized hyperbolic stretching), I was able to produce this film HDR of Orion and the Running Man by combining 60 minute and 10 minute exposures.
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
September 28, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Here are the scans of my latest film photos! This was my first roll testing an off-axis guider for guiding through the same scope as the camera. Andromeda was a 30 min exposure and Orion was a 1 hr exposure, all manually guided so I'm really happy with these results!
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
September 27, 2025 at 4:29 PM
The comet I discovered in 2016 has been listed by viral sensationalist videos claiming an "unprecedented" swarm of comets is sweeping through the inner solar system and might even be dangerous. In this video I set the record straight:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpFs...
#astronomy #comets #swarm #414P
Is my comet part of a swarm?
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
www.youtube.com
September 19, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Here is a 25 frame stack of the comet I discovered using NASA's STEREO spacecraft. I discovered this comet on the opposite side of the sun in 2016 before it could be seen from Earth, and now I've captured it with my 11" SCT and Canon 90D, aligning these frames with my own Python code.
#astronomy
September 18, 2025 at 3:33 AM
On Sunday, I captured SpaceX's launch of NG-23 all the way to first stage landing in one continuous shot with what may be the cheapest, worst telescope ever to pull off a launch to landing shot, using predictive tracking with my RocketTraker software.
youtu.be/urBONk04usQ
#spacex #astronomy #space
NG-23 Launch to Landing With a $100 Refractor
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
youtu.be
September 17, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Sunday morning I was able to capture the comet I discovered with NASA's STEREO spacecraft back in 2016. It was faint and only 14.75° above the horizon, but my 11" Celestron NexStar GPS and Canon 90D were able to get it done. This is a quick and dirty stack by hand, I'll be redoing it.
#astronomy
September 16, 2025 at 10:58 AM
I don't generally post about politics, but space deniers are sometimes violent people who will use any excuse for violence. Political violence is unacceptable, death threats are unacceptable, and if anyone tries to kill me, I will defend myself if at all possible.
#kirk
September 11, 2025 at 11:12 PM
It was extraordinarily faint and just barely detectable through a ton of moonlight this morning, but in the middle of the circle is the comet I discovered in 2016, 414P! Other amateurs have recently spotted it as well as it approaches perihelion:
www.aerith.net/comet/catalo...
#Astronomy #414P
September 10, 2025 at 1:03 AM
I recently measured the distance of Barnard's Star using parallax, but I also showed Earth's orbital motion in a different way. I'm open to being corrected, but as far as I know, this is the first time an amateur has demonstrated velocity aberration.
youtu.be/uRrkuBW3R58
#astronomy #relativity
Measuring the Distance to Barnard's Star!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
youtu.be
September 7, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Flight 10 completed a successful flight!
x.com/SpaceX/statu...
Unfortunately I couldn't track this one from Florida due to rain only 30 minutes prior to liftoff, but there will be more opportunities in the future.
SpaceX on X: "Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting tenth flight test of Starship! https://t.co/5sbSPBRJBP" / X
Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting tenth flight test of Starship! https://t.co/5sbSPBRJBP
x.com
August 27, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Here is my 2.5 hour time lapse of Titan's shadow transiting across Saturn on August 19th! The mp4 video from the Blackmagic camera was aligned to compensate for field rotation and stacked with custom Python software.
youtu.be/kXkYJNA-fXY
#astronomy #astrophotography #Saturn #Python
Titan's Shadow Transits Across Saturn!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
youtu.be
August 25, 2025 at 12:22 AM
On Saturday morning I was able to track an 80° pass of ISS and wave to #RupertInSpace and the rest of Expedition 73 as ISS flew over Cape Canaveral. Be sure to check out the 4K video of the pass!
youtu.be/QicKrVMPr70?...
#ISS #NASA #astronomy #astrophotography #satellite
August 18, 2025 at 12:31 AM
The comet I discovered in 2016 using STEREO Ahead, originally designated P/2016 J3, now designated 414P/STEREO, has been recovered by the Calar Alto observatory on July 28th! I'll be taking my own follow up observations as soon as possible!
www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/sh...
#astronomy #comet
IAU Minor Planet Center
We are the official body that deals with astrometric observations and orbits of minor planets (asteroids) and comets.
www.minorplanetcenter.net
August 6, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Here is a time lapse of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS recorded with my 8" LX200. The comet is about magnitude 17, right at the limit of what my scope can capture with these 60 second exposures. These images were recorded using an SBIG ST-2000XCM with 2x2 binning and an AO-7.
#astronomy
July 21, 2025 at 4:01 AM
3 hours of light on Stephan's Quintet processed in GraXpert and Siril. 8" Meade LX200 classic with an SBIG ST-2000XCM and AO-7. AI background extraction, denoise, star removal and recombination.
#astrophotography
July 13, 2025 at 12:58 PM
NGC 3628 processed in GraXpert and Siril. 1 hour and 45 minutes of light stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. 8" Meade LX200 and SBIG ST-2000XCM with an AO-7.
#astrophotography
July 13, 2025 at 3:08 AM