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
C/2025 A6 Lemmon tonight
October 25, 2025 at 2:53 AM
C/2025 A6 Lemmon tonight
Here's a 34 frame stack. Stacking loses the turbulence in the exhaust but improves the grain. You can even just start to make out the front flaps in the silhouette.
October 15, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Here's a 34 frame stack. Stacking loses the turbulence in the exhaust but improves the grain. You can even just start to make out the front flaps in the silhouette.
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
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!
You weren't kidding about the hot pixels. I did my best to calibrate and stack based on the orbit and astrometry of the images, there is some degree of cometary motion over 10 minutes and the result now has the nucleus as a still fuzzy but better defined single motion blurred line.
October 5, 2025 at 6:05 PM
You weren't kidding about the hot pixels. I did my best to calibrate and stack based on the orbit and astrometry of the images, there is some degree of cometary motion over 10 minutes and the result now has the nucleus as a still fuzzy but better defined single motion blurred line.
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
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.
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
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
September 28, 2025 at 4:25 PM
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
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
The film used was CineStill T800, which I'm told is the same emulsion as the Amber 800T I used previously and that does seem to be the case. It has great response to hydrogen alpha light, but it is grainy. Here's a 30 min shot of the Bubble nebula from the same roll.
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
September 27, 2025 at 4:30 PM
The film used was CineStill T800, which I'm told is the same emulsion as the Amber 800T I used previously and that does seem to be the case. It has great response to hydrogen alpha light, but it is grainy. Here's a 30 min shot of the Bubble nebula from the same roll.
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
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
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
September 27, 2025 at 4:29 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
#astrophotography #filmisnotdead
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
#astronomy
September 18, 2025 at 3:33 AM
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
#astronomy
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
#astronomy
September 16, 2025 at 10:58 AM
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
#astronomy
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
#kirk
September 11, 2025 at 11:12 PM
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
#kirk
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
www.aerith.net/comet/catalo...
#Astronomy #414P
September 10, 2025 at 1:03 AM
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
www.aerith.net/comet/catalo...
#Astronomy #414P
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
youtu.be/QicKrVMPr70?...
#ISS #NASA #astronomy #astrophotography #satellite
August 18, 2025 at 12:31 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
youtu.be/QicKrVMPr70?...
#ISS #NASA #astronomy #astrophotography #satellite
3I/ATLAS is extremely faint, so I also stacked 65 minutes of light aligned on the comet using astrometry and some custom code in Python to align the images based on JPL's predicted position of the comet. The result shows a faint object right where the comet was predicted to be.
#astronomy #3I/ATLAS
#astronomy #3I/ATLAS
July 21, 2025 at 4:03 AM
3I/ATLAS is extremely faint, so I also stacked 65 minutes of light aligned on the comet using astrometry and some custom code in Python to align the images based on JPL's predicted position of the comet. The result shows a faint object right where the comet was predicted to be.
#astronomy #3I/ATLAS
#astronomy #3I/ATLAS
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
#astronomy
July 21, 2025 at 4:01 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
#astronomy
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
#astrophotography
July 13, 2025 at 12:58 PM
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
#astrophotography
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
#astrophotography
July 13, 2025 at 3:08 AM
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
#astrophotography
Here's a GraXpert and Siril reprocessed version of my Orion nebula data with the SBIG and AO-7 from 2021, using AI background extraction, denoising and star removal/reintegration.
#astrophotography
#astrophotography
July 9, 2025 at 2:36 AM
Here's a GraXpert and Siril reprocessed version of my Orion nebula data with the SBIG and AO-7 from 2021, using AI background extraction, denoising and star removal/reintegration.
#astrophotography
#astrophotography
Here's a GraXpert and Siril re-processing of M101 using AI background subtraction, denoising, and StarNet separate processing of the galaxy and the stars. The 6 hours of light in this stack come from 2023 during the SN 2023ixf supernova, hard to believe it's already been 2 years! #astrophotography
July 6, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Here's a GraXpert and Siril re-processing of M101 using AI background subtraction, denoising, and StarNet separate processing of the galaxy and the stars. The 6 hours of light in this stack come from 2023 during the SN 2023ixf supernova, hard to believe it's already been 2 years! #astrophotography
Here's a 6.5 hour stack. I was less aggressive in the stretching on this version and I didn't like the photometric color calibration result on the last version, so I left the color balance as-is in this version.
#astrophotography #sbig #M51
#astrophotography #sbig #M51
July 5, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Here's a 6.5 hour stack. I was less aggressive in the stretching on this version and I didn't like the photometric color calibration result on the last version, so I left the color balance as-is in this version.
#astrophotography #sbig #M51
#astrophotography #sbig #M51
I've been bitten by free AI processing tools that are out there now for astrophotography. Here's 4.42 hours of my best light on M51, processed in GraXpert and Siril, using AI background subtraction and denoising, stretching a starless version of the image separate from the stars.
#astrophotography
#astrophotography
July 4, 2025 at 2:23 PM
I've been bitten by free AI processing tools that are out there now for astrophotography. Here's 4.42 hours of my best light on M51, processed in GraXpert and Siril, using AI background subtraction and denoising, stretching a starless version of the image separate from the stars.
#astrophotography
#astrophotography
I finally got around to processing additional exposures I had taken of the Whirlpool galaxy in late May. Stacking it with exposures taken earlier in April as well as exposures taken at the same focal length back in March 2017, I was able to produce this 6.5 hour stack.
#astronomy #astrophotography
#astronomy #astrophotography
June 22, 2025 at 10:08 PM
I finally got around to processing additional exposures I had taken of the Whirlpool galaxy in late May. Stacking it with exposures taken earlier in April as well as exposures taken at the same focal length back in March 2017, I was able to produce this 6.5 hour stack.
#astronomy #astrophotography
#astronomy #astrophotography