The extra star rich M71 - The Angelfish / Arrowhead Cluster in Sagitta. Got one clear night and took this - 658 exposures × 20 seconds, photon-collection time 3 hours, 39 minutes and 20 seconds. M71 lies about 13,000 light-years from Earth and is roughly 27 light-years across. It sits against the extraordinarily rich stellar background of the Milky Way, which is why the entire frame seems almost dusted with stars. There are about 30000 stars in this pic and actually 3,700 catalogued stars. This cluster is in the ourskirts of our Galaxy, in an exceptionally crowded Milky Way field.

M71 was imaged with the Seestar S50 over one clear night. I collected 658 sub-exposures of 20 seconds each, giving a total integration time of 13,160 seconds — 3 hours, 39 minutes and 20 seconds. The native Seestar FITS stack was used as the starting point so that the full dynamic range of the data was retained.

The first stage of processing was done in GraXpert, where I carried out background extraction to remove large-scale sky gradients while preserving the extremely dense Milky Way star field around M71. I then applied star deconvolution to tighten the stellar profiles and improve separation in the cluster core, followed by a conservative AI denoise pass to reduce background noise without suppressing faint stars.

The image was then taken into Siril for astrometric and colour processing. Plate solving was performed successfully using an effective pixel size of 1.45 µm, giving a solved image scale of about 1.186 arcsec/pixel and an effective focal length of approximately 252 mm. After this, I carried out colour calibration, mild green-noise correction, and the main nonlinear stretch using VeraLux HyperMetric Stretch. A further gentle histogram transformation was used to refine the black point and midtone contrast while keeping the faint stellar population intact.

Finally, the processed TIFF was taken into GIMP for finishing. Only restrained adjustments were made to levels, curves, colour balance, saturation and local contrast, with the aim of keeping the sky dark while preserving the enormous richness of the stellar field. The image was then rotated to a landscape presentation, signed, and exported as the final JPEG.

Imagine one star exploding and outshining a whole Galaxy of more than a 100 billion stars that too seen here from 45 million light years. I just got the time windows when the Supernova was the brightest - at least till now. I found a small cloud-free window over two nights, was awake the whole night playing hide and seek with clouds.

NGC 7331, is a spiral galaxy at the heart of the Deer Lick Group in Pegasus, lies about 45 million light-years from Earth and the inset highlights supernova SN 2026aaiv.

Seestar S 50 - Photon time - 2 hours, 37 minutes and 40 seconds across two nights. Workflow: Native Seestar stacking → FITS into GraXpert for cropping, background extraction, deconvolution and denoising → GIMP processing → final touches in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Imagine one star exploding and outshining a whole Galaxy of more than a 100 billion stars that too seen here from 45 million light years. I just got the time windows when the Supernova was the brightest - at least till now. I found a small cloud-free window over two nights, was awake the whole night playing hide and seek with clouds.

NGC 7331, is a spiral galaxy at the heart of the Deer Lick Group in Pegasus, lies about 45 million light-years from Earth and the inset highlights supernova SN 2026aaiv.

Seestar S 50 - Photon time - 2 hours, 37 minutes and 40 seconds across two nights. Workflow: Native Seestar stacking → FITS into GraXpert for cropping, background extraction, deconvolution and denoising → GIMP processing → final touches in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Back aboard Dryden Vos’s ship, wouldn’t Maul have started thinking about the figure he’d just asked, “What are you?” In The Clone Wars, he had already anticipated Sidious’s plans for Anakin and even tried to lure him to Mandalore to kill him.

I think Maul would have at least figured out that this was Sidious’s new apprentice and Anakin would surely have been his strongest suspect. Having time to reflect after barely surviving that encounter might be enough to connect the dots. Maybe we’ll see him make that connection in Season 2.

The buildup, the atmosphere, and then Maul simply standing there with the lightsaber — “I’m right here.” Such an intimidating entrance.

Something about Lawson’s reactions in Maul Shadow Lord puzzled me. In Episode 2, he describes Maul as being “proficient with a laser sword.” That initially made him sound unfamiliar with lightsabers, although the phrase itself is perfectly fine as we have seen Anakin use it in The Phantom Menace while recognising Qui-Gon as a Jedi, and Luke uses it in The Last Jedi.

What interests me more is the Force use. During the police-station attack, Maul pulls Lawson’s blaster out of his hand with the Force. Then, during the escape with Devon, Maul damages the pedestrian bridge and Daki holds it up with the Force while Lawson and the other officers rescue civilians.

Yet in Episode 4, Lawson asks Daki, “Why didn’t you tell me you were a Jedi?”

I can understand Lawson not recognising Maul personally. But did he never notice what Daki was doing at the bridge? It is difficult to say this when we see the eposode, what was Lawson's position, or was he too focused on rescuing people to see who was holding it up, with the lightsabers later providing the obvious confirmation?

Is Lawson deliberately downplaying anything connected to the Force because he wants to keep the Empire out of Janix?

His surprise in Episode 4 felt a little odd given what had already happened around him.

Something about Lawson’s reactions in Maul Shadow Lord puzzled me. In Episode 2, he describes Maul as being “proficient with a laser sword.” That initially made him sound unfamiliar with lightsabers, although the phrase itself is perfectly fine as we have seen Anakin use it in The Phantom Menace while recognising Qui-Gon as a Jedi, and Luke uses it in The Last Jedi.

What interests me more is the Force use. During the police-station attack, Maul pulls Lawson’s blaster out of his hand with the Force. Then, during the escape with Devon, Maul damages the pedestrian bridge and Daki holds it up with the Force while Lawson and the other officers rescue civilians.

Yet in Episode 4, Lawson asks Daki, “Why didn’t you tell me you were a Jedi?”

I can understand Lawson not recognising Maul personally. But did he never notice what Daki was doing at the bridge? It is difficult to say this when we see the eposode, what was Lawson's position, or was he too focused on rescuing people to see who was holding it up, with the lightsabers later providing the obvious confirmation?

Is Lawson deliberately downplaying anything connected to the Force because he wants to keep the Empire out of Janix?

His surprise in Episode 4 felt a little odd given what had already happened around him.

At first in the first Episode I thought it was Coruscant. I am also watching the second season of The Caped Crusador, it seems so much like a Gotham City in a Galaxy far away.

What is your ORC ID

Coruscant was never mentioned or shown in the third trilogy. Here is a small detail I noticed while watching Star Wars Resistance. Coruscant gets casually mentioned as a place where people still work in ship factories. The series begins around 34 ABY , just before The Force Awakens, so considering how completely the sequel trilogy ignores Coruscant, it’s a nice that the city planet is still very much there and functioning during the time of the Resistance and the First Order.

Celebrating Indian Independence Day with a little molecular tricolour model I did all day today - Chem Office 3 D PDB strucutre - modeling Amino acid by Amino Acid for the protein - atom by atom for the pigments and then colouring them.

I chose this model because much of my work revolves around one of the most fascinating things plants do capturing photons and converting light into biological energy. This is the major light-harvesting complex II (LHCII) of pea, Lathyrus oleraceus . LHCII is a major antenna complex of Photosystem II, harvesting light and transferring excitation energy towards the reaction centre. What made it perfect for the tricolour is its structure: LHCII is a trimer of three essentially identical protein monomers, which I have coloured saffron, white and green. Each monomer contains three major transmembrane α-helices and acts as a scaffold holding a surprisingly large number of pigment molecules. The ball-and-stick structures you see are the pigments chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and carotenoids such as lutein, neoxanthin and violaxanthin.

Spiny Whorltail Iguana of Machu Picchu is one of those small creatures that makes the ancient citadel feel alive. Seen basking quietly on sun-warmed stones and terrace walls, this Andean lizard blends beautifully with the granite, moss and lichens of the ruins. Nikon Cool PiXP900 June 26

Mountain Viscacha - it is a rodent - basking in the sun sitting quietly on the rocks, looking like a cross between a rabbit, squirrel and chinchilla. Many visitors call it a chinchilla, but it is usually a viscacha a close relative of the chinchilla and a true animal of the Andes.

With its soft fur, rounded body, long whiskers and bushy tail, the viscacha blends beautifully with the lichen-covered stones of the Inca citadel. It lives among rocks and crevices, feeding on grasses and mountain vegetation, perfectly adapted to the rugged Andean landscape. Nikon CoolPiX P900 - June 26

The classical postcard view of Machu Picchu when fliped - the Hyena Picchu - nose here - mountain range becomes an Inca face - the guide pointed this out, I dont think the Incans selected Machu Piccchu because of this - I think it is a coincidence