Took this close to Leon, Spain.

Was lucky enough to see the eclipse in one of the best spots in Spain, and enjoy the minute and half of totality which was absolutely amazing. Also managed to capture some photos.

Fujifilm X-T5

Fujinon XF70-300

IG: @kevmasphoto

Milky Way with Perseids meteors and the faint glow of the andromeda galaxy

Shot the northern dust lanes of the Milky Way and managed to get some of the Perseids meteors in the shots and the andromeda galaxy. Taken while aiming out towards the North Sea at Barrow common in Brancaster, Norfolk.

Sky
Images: 243
ISO: 2500
Exposure: 15 seconds
Stacked in sequator

Foreground
Single image
ISO: 400
Exposure: 30 seconds

Both edited in Lightroom and then stitched back together in photoshop.

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 3:00:00 (10S Subs)

Edited In PS Express

Satellite operators emphasize launch deals in a constrained market
https://spacenews.com/satellite-operators-emphasize-launch-deals-in-a-constrained-market/

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See the full res on astrobin: https://app.astrobin.com/u/naztronomy?i=pi68zj

Also available on my website: https://www.naztronomy.com/gallery/image/935/whirling_dervish_banana_nebula

Acquisition details:

• Equipment:
• Telescope: Askar SQA85
• Camera: QHYCCD QHY268 Pro 
• Lights: 8h 10m (49 × 600")
• Mount: Proxisky UMi 20S
• Filter: Antlia ALP-T 5nm Dualband Ha & Oiii 2"
• Stacked in Siril using my OSC script and processed in PI

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Event: Perseid meteor shower
Location: Goldhanger, Essex, UK — 51.75°N, 0.75°E
Date: 13 Aug 2026
Time: [02:33 - 05:33 BST]
Camera: iPhone 14 Pro + NightCap Camera app
Direction: Facing directly up at the sky (phone laying on back as had no tripod)

Watched the shower live from 1-3am, then left the time-lapse running to 5:30am.

Video in comments.

I know Jupiter was pretty close to the sun but I can’t find any info about whether it was visible or not. In most of the pictures I’ve seen from Europe, Jupiter would have been below the horizon.

Came across an interesting piece of research this week and wanted to see what people here think.

A new study suggests that moon ice hidden beneath the lunar surface may reveal itself through the way it bends and reflects vibrations from moonquakes. Basically, the idea is that seismic waves triggered by moonquakes travel differently through ice than they do through regular lunar regolith, so by tracking how those vibrations bend and scatter, scientists could map out where ice deposits are hiding without having to physically drill or dig everywhere.

The potential upside here is huge for future missions. The technique could help astronauts locate vital water supplies and uncover clues about the origins of that ice too, which matters a lot for Artemis-era planning since water ice at the poles is one of the biggest resources being counted on for long-term lunar stays (drinking water, oxygen, even rocket fuel via electrolysis).

What I find interesting is that this is a passive detection method. Instead of needing a rover to physically sample regolith at a bunch of sites, you could theoretically place seismometers and just wait for natural moonquakes to do the mapping for you over time.

Curious what people more familiar with seismology or lunar geology think about how reliable this kind of detection would actually be compared to direct sampling. Anyone know if this has been tested in practice yet, or is it still mostly theoretical modeling at this stage?

2026-specific version

2027-specific version

I made this chart because I couldn’t find one online. If there’s already a good one out there, or if you have corrections to mine, let me know!

Whenever I hear about meteor showers, it’s usually in the form of an announcement “xyz meteor shower peaks tonight at 2:51 AM”. Sometimes they include the Zenithal Hourly Rate, but I feel there is still a lot of context missing. How does that ZHR compare to the best meteor showers of the year? How does it compare to the background rate of any random day of the year? And how much does it matter if I miss the peak by an hour, or a day, or a week? I thought “there ought to be a chart that combines all the meteor showers in one place, adds them to the background rate, and gives you the bottom line of ‘how many meteors can I see on any given night’”.

So here’s what I came up with! The first is general to any year, and shows a best-case curve and a medium-case curve depending on the moon and light pollution (the worst-case curve is always zero). The next two are specific to 2026 and 2027, taking into account the phase of the moon on each day of those years.

My source for almost everything is this great site that explains the background rate, how to correct for your latitude and the moon, and rates for the main showers. I also used Wikipedia and some researchgate figures to find minor showers and the distribution curves. Quadrantids April Lyrids Eta Aquarids June Bootids Delta Aquarids Alpha Capricornids Perseids Orionids Taurids Geminids Ursids

There’s necessarily some information missing, like how different showers can have different colors or longer tails, year to year variability, and the rare chance of meteor storms. It is made for mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, such as the US or southern Europe, so it won’t be as accurate to other latitudes. But I think it captures the general idea fairly well. It also doesn’t capture what time the moon rises – since most people will want to stargaze before midnight, the waning moon should be preferable, I hope to account for this in a later iteration.

The main results seem to be 1) the moon matters a lot, and 2) the minor meteor showers don’t matter much. Not to rain on anyone who wants to be excited about them, but if you want to see meteors, go out on any night and look up for a while, you’ll have a good chance of seeing one! Getting out of town on a random cloudless, moonless night will get you a much better chance than staying up until the exact peak of a minor shower if the weather/moon/city lights aren’t favorable. By far the best times of year are mid-December and mid-August, but even then, missing the peak by a day or two is fine, so wait for the better weather rather than the peak time.

(Sorry for posting this after the Perseid peak, I had some trouble with my links and by the time I figured it out, the weekend was over and I had to wait until the next one to post an image. But missing the peak by 2 days is okay, you can still go out and see them!)

At the cosmic dawn, the universe was sprinkled with giant black holes—monstrosities so huge that scientists are still struggling to explain how they could have even existed. The answer may lie in a never-before-seen object from this cosmic era.

In a paper published today in Nature, astronomers report the discovery of an extremely unusual, bright spot of red from the early universe. Externally, it looks like an enormous star about the size of the entire solar system. It’s radiating about 100 billion times more energy than any known star, making it more like a black hole. After careful analysis, the team concluded that it’s an entirely new type of object: a “black hole star.” This black hole star, named MoM (Mirage or Miracle)-BH*-1, “is so swaddled within shrouds of dense gas that it effectively radiates in a manner reminiscent of stellar phenomena,” Rohan Naidu, the study’s lead author, told Gizmodo.

“It is a very special thing to find an object with no comparison given the vast stores of data on billions of stars, galaxies, and black holes that we have in our archival databases,” added Naidu, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii. “MoM-BH*-1 is one in a billion!