Cosmos & Exploration

Stacked/Blended/Tracked

https://www.instagram.com/flory.ro?igsh=b3Y4ZTU3Nmk0cTBt&utm\_source=qr

I was looking for a Tajinaste, one of the iconic symbols of the Canary Islands, and I was lucky enough to find it beneath the famous Mirador de Los Andenes. In front of me, a volcanic landscape rises above a sea of clouds that gently blankets the villages below, while one of the most breathtaking night skies in the Canary Islands unfolds overhead.

• Sky: Canon R + Canon 6D | 3-panel panorama | 120s | f/2.8 | ISO 1600
Ha 6x120 s| f/2.8| ISO 3200
• Foreground: 180s | 1/2.8 | ISO 3200

NASA's astronaut Chris Williams was practicing some nighttime photographs from one of the windows on the International Space Station at the end of the work day on New Year's Eve.

He had just finished passing over his targets when he noticed something funny – the city below him was twinkling! He quickly took a video and realized that as they were orbiting further east, we had orbited into 2026, and he was actually seeing the New Year's fireworks over Baku, Azerbaijan!

Credit: NASA's astronaut Chris Williams

Medium: oil on canvas

Feedback welcome!

13 hours integration

Skywatcher evoguide 50ED

Sv165 guide scope

Zwo178mc guide camera

Svbony sv405cc main camera

No filter

Bortle 7

120 sec exposures

Skywatcher adventurer GTI mount

Hey r/space!

A good friend of mine told me to share my latest design here. I’m Matt - a watch designer by day, and space nerd by night.

Space exploration and watchmaking has always gone hand in hand, from Scott Carpenters Breitling Cosmonaut as one of the earliest watches in space, to the iconic Omega Speedmaster worn on the moon during Apollo 11.

Having always wanted a Speedmaster, but without the funds to justify one, I set about creating my own space themed watch.

Whilst watching a documentary about the overview effect, I was inspired to create a watch that focuses on Earth. I chose the Blue Marble photograph from Apollo 17 as a starting point, imagining myself looking out the window at our Earth. After some testing, I was able to find the right materials to create a transparent disc that shows the Earth as the seconds hand, orbiting around the subdial.

As a slight nod to my favourite movie, the dial and markers were inspired by the millennium falcon cockpit.

I’d love to get your thoughts if you have time, how did I do with this design? Do you have any feedback?

I’d love your honest opinion, as I’m at a bit of a crossroads. The watch market hasn’t taken to this design as well as my previous designs, and I’m deciding between doubling down on this, or to shelve it after this production run and move in a different direction.

Thank you!

Matt

This false-color mosaic shows the entire hemisphere of Iapetus (1,468 kilometers, or 912 miles across) visible from Cassini on the outbound leg of its encounter with the two-toned moon in Sept. 2007.

Edited close-up of IC 1396B The Elephant Trunk. 47/180 second subs captured 5/30/26

Telescope: Askar V, 80mm

Camera: ZWO ASI6200MC PRO

Filter: IDAS NB12

Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro

Guiding: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Processed in GraXpert, PixInsight and Topaz Gigapixel for upscaling

Taken with an Askar 80PHQ, 0.76x reducer, asi2600MC with L-enhance filter for close to 28 hours in Bortle 7 skies.

Everything done in Pixinsight. My main steps are WBPP, SPCC, BlurX, Graxpert, Statistical stretch, Starnet++, histogram- and curves transformation.

At the end I use Pixelmath to set the median value to 20 to get the background across my images relatively consistent. It's a bit lighter than most photos but I send them out to be printed later and this way the prints don't turn out too dark.

As an aside, I made a stack when I had around 10 hours of data and the difference is pretty small!

Experimenting with a method I'm developing myself (although I suspect others have done something similar) combining both OSC from one setup and mono from another setup. It's a bit complicated to explain, but I can try if some want to know.

Data:

Both were taken on a Iexos 100 mount

All subs were 30 seconds, calibrated

 

Mono: Askar 300FRA Pro, MiniCam8 Mono

H - 81 subs

S - 151 subs

O - 152 subs

 

OSC:  AT60ED, Playerone Saturn, Antlia Triband

1304 subs

Stars were from the OSC subs only.

 

All from Bortle 8/9

 

Edited with Siril, GraXpert, SAS Pro, Affinity, and Rawtherapee.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of Thebe, the second largest of Jupiter’s inner moons, during a close pass on May 1, 2026. The spacecraft’s Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) captured this image from a distance of approximately 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) at a resolution of about 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel.

Thebe resides at the outer edge of Jupiter’s faint ring system and is believed to play a role in the formation of the planet’s “gossamer” ring through the shedding of dust.

While the SRU’s primary function is to image star fields for navigation, its high sensitivity in low-light conditions makes it a powerful secondary science instrument. The SRU has previously been used to discover “shallow lightning” in Jupiter’s atmosphere and to image the planet’s ring system.

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.​

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

https://science.nasa.gov/photojournal/nasas-juno-misson-captures-jupiter-moon-thebe/

This is my first attempt at stacking images of t'sun, captured on the 4th.

I am using the Raspberry Pi 5, with the HQ Camera, and a 100mm f3.5 c-mount lens.

First processing is through Siril as PIPP wouldn't recognise the images otherwise. Then into PIPP, then AutoStakkert, then Photopea for minor adjustments. There are ~700 images @ 0.001 seconds. Baader Solar Film.

I ticked the Sharpen box in Autostakkert, and I think that may be what is causing all the weirdness around the edges. It could also be the drift or something, I'm not really sure. It has taken me a week or two of trying different options to get it to this!

I was pretty pleased with the sun spots, but tbh idk if I did a good job, might delete later.

Images captured using my 3D Printed MountOne GOTO System.

This is a procedural 3D render of a spiral galaxy I built from scratch in Blender. This was a very challenging task and is the result of months of effort, trial and error.

Source and details: 2026 orbital launches

Captured with Canon EOS R10 + RF200-800 set at 800 mm (APS-C so equivalent 1280 mm).
Hand-tracked single shot, 1/400s, f/9, ISO-1600. My body was leaning on my car so this can count for "improved hand tracking".

Highest elevation was ±60° at my location, although i can not provide the exact elevation of this picture.

The image is cropped since at this exposure no star is visible.

No processing at all. Not necessary.

Hello,

This was my first serious project since i started astrophotography a few years ago. I've come upon this nebula on the internet and found it really insteresting and decided it would be my next target. Acquisicion took around 1 year and with a lot of hickups along the way. Managed to process around 34 hours of data, and this is the result.

Equipment:
Redcat 51;
Toutptek ATR2600c;
HEQ5- Pro belt modded;
Orion 50mm guide scope;
asi 120mm mini
Melee Quieter 3Q mini PC

Software:
NINA;
PHD2;
Sharpcap;
Pixinsight;
Photoshop

Acquisition:
Around 430 (300s) light frames, gain 100, offset 50, -10ºC, dithered.

Pre-Processing:
Blink and subframeselector and wbpp.

Processing:
GraXpert, Astrometry solution, SPCC, blurXterminator, starXterminator;
starless: noiseXterminator, GHS, masks and curves teaks.
stars: GHS.
Recombine, some more curves.

Photoshop:
Watermark, resample.

I really liked the final result, looks great on a A3+ Canon Platinum paper.
More stuff on Astrobin or Instagram.

Clear skies, all!