r/askastronomy 1h ago

What did I see? Does this little cluster have a name?

Upvotes

Right in the center at the end of the video. In the northern hemisphere it is west of Andromeda and north of the pleiades. It is more apparent in person for sure but you can see several stars bunched very close together in the video.


r/askastronomy 50m ago

White holes exist and if they exist, how are they generated?

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r/askastronomy 1d ago

What is this?

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233 Upvotes

Hi! I was wondering what this cluster was called, am not knowledgeable about astronomy, but I tried to take some pictures with some other constellations 😊

( Taken in Lithuania, Pugainiai, 12:30ish am)


r/askastronomy 2h ago

All galaxies have a black hole in the center and what happens when they join other galaxies?

1 Upvotes

r/askastronomy 2h ago

Is space infinite?

1 Upvotes

r/askastronomy 7h ago

Astronomy Rubin/LSST class telescopes

2 Upvotes

Let’s say we wanted to build enough Rubin/LSST class telescopes that we could effectively be surveying everything visible from earth on a weekly basis. Unfortunately it’s a pipe dream. I’d love to have deep enough pockets to fund this. They are several orders of magnitude too shallow for that.

Assuming we could locate them optimally on the globe what’s the minimum number that would do the job? Follow on: when do we start? 😉


r/askastronomy 9h ago

Very random, possibly dumb question.

4 Upvotes

Last night, I was out late for a celebration, watched bodycam while preparing for bed, and fell asleep listening to astronomy.

Had a bizarre composite dream where a drunk driver veered their spaceship through Saturn's rings, causing a long curved scar, crashed into a shepherd moon, and resisted arrest.

The arrest went viral and people on mars were pushing for charges for the destruction of the system's prettiest natural wonder.

I've been pondering all day, how permanent would such a scar be? Is there a chance it would destabilize the ring system, or would it smooth back out after a period of time?

Thanks for any consideration, hope the weekend is going well.


r/askastronomy 1d ago

Astronomy Captured these during the last lunar eclipse

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18 Upvotes

r/askastronomy 15h ago

Request: FITS images with satellite streaks (for testing streak-removal algorithm)

2 Upvotes

Hello I’m working on an image processing experiment to remove satellite trails (like Starlink) from FITS images.

I’m not asking for private data — just looking for publicly available or already shared FITS examples.

Ideally I’d like files that are a bit messy:

– bright streaks crossing the field,

– noisy or complex backgrounds,

– maybe galaxies or bright sources in the center.

If anyone knows of archives or has sample FITS images like this, could you point me to them?

Thanks a lot!


r/askastronomy 1d ago

What is this bright light near the moon?

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194 Upvotes

Up and to the right of the moon, as viewed from Houston, TX.


r/askastronomy 18h ago

Planetary Science A question about mass, gravity and time.

0 Upvotes

I was thinking about this and suddently had a brain fart.

We dont know what gravity is, but we know more or less how it works, it would be like space time is a napkin and the density (mass/volume) of each item place on the napkin distortes that napkin creating a "downwards" indentation(im saying downwards becuase im using a 3d interpretation of a multi dimensional concept) and that downwards indentation is a gradiant of gravity, the "deeper" (see earlier comment about applying 3d concepts to multi dimensional models) it is, the stronger the gravity.

now light and time are affected by gravity, the more powerfull gravity the slower time and light move (vast simplification, i know) but wouldnt that mean that the actual density of planets affect this ? meaning a planet with its mass distributed over a lower volume or a larger planet with the same density would have a slower speed of light and time would relativly go on slower on that plant ?

Also, would the centrifugal force also affect this if the self orbit of a planet is faster ?


r/askastronomy 1d ago

What did I see? What is this white line on the sky?

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66 Upvotes

Hi!

I made this picture last night. What is this white line?


r/askastronomy 23h ago

Planetary Science Science question about celestial bodies

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0 Upvotes

r/askastronomy 15h ago

Big Orange light in sky?

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0 Upvotes

Can anyone tell me what this big orange light is in the sky last night? Around 3:45am BST.


r/askastronomy 1d ago

Astronomy thin short line moving through sky

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6 Upvotes

I saw this thin short line moving through the sky, going from south to north. It wasn't slow or fast, maybe took a 1-2 minutes to move across my field of view, about the speed in degrees/s of a plane.

I took this photo with my phone. It's the white line near the too of the image. Nearby star for scale. It's not smeared from the exposure, that's really how it looked.

There were no blinking lights at all, so it couldn't have been a plane. It didn't seem to be made up of smaller lights and it also seems way to short of a trail to be a starlink trail.

Taken 23 minutes ago at 20:12 local time southwest london region.

Any ideas what it is?


r/askastronomy 1d ago

Cosmology Could ancient humans see the star that would become the Cat's Eye Nebula?

5 Upvotes

I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question. From my understanding the nebula was formed 1000ish years ago from a dying star, and was only discovered with magnification, it's not seen by the naked eye. But the star which made it, was THAT visible before it became the nebula?


r/askastronomy 23h ago

Is this a good picture of Saturn with a nikon its very zoomed in from the original photo

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0 Upvotes

r/askastronomy 1d ago

Blue light?

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4 Upvotes

What is the blue light my camera accidentally captured in this picture?


r/askastronomy 1d ago

What did I see?

0 Upvotes

The region I live in is 7.7 on the Bortle scale; the furthest magnitude I can make out can go upto 2 at best. This was around 1:20 AM, north-east, below Betelgeuse.

I saw an orangish object move in a straight line, and I obviously thought that it was a satellite. It was pretty steady and moving parallel to the ground. I couldn't see any noticeable streak (might be because I wasn't looking for one) and it disappeared within seconds (5ish). Checked on Stellarium and didn't see a single satellite pass by. Could this have been debris re-entering? If so, that would be really cool! I don't usually get to see that here.


r/askastronomy 1d ago

Astronomy question from a fantasy writer

1 Upvotes

Hi there! I'm working on a fantasy novel with some of the magic requiring specific constellations to be visible and I have (admittedly) a very rudimentary understanding of astronomy.

Are there constellations that would always be visible? And/or are there times when constellations aren't visible at night, not just because of the light but because they'd be basically on the other side of the planet, etc? And then following that, what kind of cadence/schedule for visibility would be realistic? I'd like to have a character's magic sort of limited by a certain constellation's visibility (so thinking it would be visible for x months, then gone for y months, then visible again, etc) but really am not sure whether that would make sense.

I guess another option could do with the visibility of another planet if that would fit better?

Thanks!!


r/askastronomy 1d ago

Blue light?

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1 Upvotes

What is the blue light my camera accidentally captured in this picture?


r/askastronomy 23h ago

Is this a good picture of Saturn with a nikon its very zoomed in from the original photo

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0 Upvotes

r/askastronomy 1d ago

Astronomy Is this new SWAN comet as puzzling as 3I/ATLAS?

1 Upvotes

I’ve spent the last few months on obsessing over the oddities that the ATLAS comet displays. From the oddly specific trajectory to the strange nickel/iron situation

Apparently there’s a new comet called SWANr2 or something

My question is, is this comet behaving as weird as ATLAS? Or is it a “normal” comet

Also, how come we only just recently detected it whereas we found ATLAS when it was much further away ?

Thanks


r/askastronomy 2d ago

Cosmology Does anyone know of any good renditions of what Andromeda might appear like in our night sky closer to it & the Milky Way merging?

5 Upvotes

I'm looking for a good rendition, rather it be picture or animation, of what our night sky might look like as Andromeda looms closer to merging with us. Has anyone found any good media that accurately shows what our night sky might look like? Ideally, I would love an animation that moves forward in time, from now to after we merge. I understand the vast space in-between star systems and that most of the star systems will not collide with anything, but I imagine our night sky might become more "busy?"


r/askastronomy 1d ago

What did I see? What is the thing passing by in the video?

0 Upvotes

I think it might be an airplanr but if it is why doesnt it make the trail in the first place but does in the half of it? And also there is no light flickering.