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Astronomy Live

@astronomylive.bsky.social
242 followers 15 following 149 posts

Amateur astronomer and neuroscientist, opinions are my own, please don't harass my employer

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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
During IFT-4 I was able track an intact SpaceX Starship at engine shutdown from Florida for the first time. I recently learned how to do flat field calibration within DaVinci Resolve. I reprocessed the footage and even found additional frames of Starship, here it is at 50% speed.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Grab your 3D glasses or a VR headset and enjoy Artemis II in 3D! Using parallax between my telescope and others, I was able to create a 3D video of the launch and flight of Artemis II. Using photos from the mission we can also see Earth and the moon in 3D! #ArtemisII #NASA #3D youtu.be/EggK6UjKiEQ
youtu.be
Artemis II in 3D!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Artemis II to the Moon and Back. The white line shows the geocentric coordinates of @nasaartemis.bsky.social II based on my orbit determination from tracking the spacecraft during the free return trajectory from April 4-10. My upcoming video will let you see the flight play out in 3D.
The background is a 4 panel panorama of the area of the sky traversed by Artemis II during my tracking. The moon is from an image I took on April 4th, but positioned where it was at Artemis 2's closest approach (weather did not permit me to shoot the moon that night). The coordinates of the panorama, Artemis II and the moon were loaded into Blender to render the scene.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Here is my analysis of my observations of #Artemis II, including my independent determination of the free return trajectory and parallax measurement of its distance. youtu.be/izv9H75tAqQ
youtu.be
Tracking Artemis II to the Moon and Back with my Telescope!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Here is my tracking of the Artemis 2 Orion capsule Integrity earlier today using T32 in Australia on the iTelescope network. I've been tracking Orion throughout the mission using a combination of my own telescope along with iTelescopes around the world to independently determine the orbit.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Here's my footage of the launch of #Artemis2! youtu.be/bg5mEcENV2A
youtu.be
Stabilized Artemis 2 Launch in 4K!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Very sorry to hear that, wish I could have known him. I've always loved SBIG cameras. I could only dream of affording one of my own in college, and I still love them for the nostalgia of the one we had at my university observatory.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
I applied Veralux Hypermetric stretch to a full disk image of Earth I received from GOES 19 today. Although it wasn't really intended for this use case, I like the result. #GOES #Earth #radio
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
And this is just what I get with HRIT, there are other options in satdump I haven't tried out yet as well.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
No I get mesoscale 1 and 2 images as well, along with a load of text files of regional forecasts and a few images transferred from goes 18 on the West Coast as well
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Yeah, I'm in communication with a couple of other radio guys who are helping me out as well. Scott Tilly is certainly a good suggestion as well.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
First light on my home made radio telescope. Its first task was to receive images and data from the GOES 19 geostationary weather satellite. Still need to tweak the setup, but it works! Having never done this before, getting satellite image data on the first attempt was quite a thrill. #radio
My new home made radio telescopeGOES 19 full disk image of earth.Satdump screenshot showing the signal from GOES 19
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Yes, it is! Thin enough to slip between the petals and with the same diameter hole for the bolts used to hold the dish together. Strong enough to hold at least a lightweight feed horn. And best of all, cheap.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
My latest telescope is my largest, but it's a radio telescope rather than an optical telescope. I'm hoping to be able to download GOES images, conduct 21cm observations, and more.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Nope. It's a one shot color camera.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
17x300s on M17, the Omega Nebula. Processed with VeraLux hypermetric stretch in Siril. 8" Meade LX200 Classic with an SBIG ST-2000XCM CCD camera. #astrophotography
M17
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Here is the result of reprocessing 6 hours of light on M101 with the VeraLux scripts in Siril. The SN 2023ixf is visible here in one of the spiral arms in this image data from May and June 2023, captured using an 8" LX200 Classic and SBIG ST-2000XCM with an AO-7. #astrophotography
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Trying out the new VeraLux scripts for processing my astrophotography in Siril! Really liking these results, like this 6.5 hour stack on the Whirlpool galaxy. #astrophotography #M51
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Plus just for my own enjoyment and collection, I love having the negatives. There's something magic about it compared to shooting astro digitally. Especially when manually guiding, you feel very connected to the resulting tangible product.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The difference with film is that you have the physical negatives, and I can offer to shoot it with them in person and go with them to have it developed later that day. No room for digital chicanery with a mechanical film SLR.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
I started shooting astro on film 25 years ago but never had the chance to try deep space on film before switching to digital, so mostly it's nostalgia. Partly it's to debunk those who claim digital astrophotography is a hoax.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The film was developed by the DarkRoom in California, I took the scans of the negatives through additional processing in astrophotography software to see what I could get out of it. That software wasn't designed for film scans of course, it's designed for modern CCDs, but it still did a good job.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
No filters!
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
No shame in trying an older camera, the Minolta SRT-100 I used for this photo is a very old mechanical film camera!
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
M31 Andromeda galaxy, 1 hour exposure on CineStill T800 film with an 8" Meade LX200 and .65 focal reducer. Processed automatically using Riccardo Paterniti's VeraLux HyperMetric script in Siril, automatic background extraction in GraXpert. #astrophotography #filmisnotdead
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Trying out Riccardo Paterniti's VeraLux HyperMetric Python script in Siril. Although it isn't necessarily designed for it, it even works on #film #astrophotography scans, like this 30 minute manually guided exposure of the Bubble Nebula! #filmisnotdead
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
#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
20x2 minute stacked imageRotational gradient processing showing jets from the cometRainbow intensity coloring of rotational gradient image.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
I recorded a 4 hour time lapse of the moon to show how the shadows change along the lunar terminator. The lunar libration was enough to create a 3D stereo image to see the shape of the moon and the terrain. Be sure to check it out if you have 3D glasses or a VR headset! #VR youtu.be/vtygobDfPZ0
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Viewing the Moon in 3D!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
C/2025 A6 Lemmon tonight
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Flight 11 Starship from the ground and from the vehicle itself. Note that you can see the same "pleated" effect on the exhaust in both pictures. Ground picture is a single frame from the Blackmagic camera on an 11" Celestron NexStar GPS telescope. #spacex #starship
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
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.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Here is my 4K telescopic tracking footage of #SpaceX Starship from Florida during flight 11 last night! youtu.be/Kspmn3YUqpI The vehicle and exhaust were illuminated by the sun while twilight was fading here in Florida, the perfect timing for a gorgeous "jellyfish" effect!
youtu.be
SpaceX Starship Flight 11 From Florida!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
#SpaceX Starship engine shutdown as seen with an 11" Celestron NexStar GPS in Florida tonight. Full 4K video coming soon.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
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!
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
In hindsight I should have debayered it myself after doing artificial dark subtraction, but I started with the de-bayered product. Rookie mistake.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
It is
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Really nice work. I also covered the Phobos thing in my live stream but I only went off the raw images for the navcam. I'll be linking to your side by side here if anyone doubts it's Phobos.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
That isn't 3I. youtube.com/live/QKls2xP...
youtube.com
Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Captured by Mars Rover!
YouTube video by Astronomy Live
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
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.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
KAI-2020CM I believe? Ironically it's the same CCD in my SBIG deep space camera, but of course it's not optimized for that on Mastcam.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Fantastic work here putting together the data from Perseverance of 3I/ATLAS.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
That makes sense. I'm used to much higher focal lengths and longer integration times.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Interesting ok, I might run them through astrometry then, I have a script to take the astrometrically solved frames and align them by polling JPL HORIZONS for the coordinates of the comet from the observer position at the imaging time.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Did you align the stack based on 3I's orbit or just the raw images without alignment?
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I sadly no longer have mine, but to be fair I don't really have room for it. I remember the day I bought it there was someone trying to haggle the store owner on the price of an LX200 by saying he didn't need the eyepiece that came with it. The owner wasn't amused lol.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I had the 6", but I really only did lunar photography with it. I only had the basic clock drive too.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I agree! I missed out on it, I only had a Newtonian on a clock drive EQ mount in the late 90s, but I would see guys manually guiding at star parties and I always wanted to try it. I love the zen-like state of it and being a more active participant in taking the photo.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
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.
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
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
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Astronomy Live @astronomylive.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
I have rolls of Kodak Ektar 100 to try this winter. Much less sensitive so it will require longer exposures, but it also has much finer grain. Although I could theoretically autoguide, I do enjoy the challenge of manually guiding. No electronics except the illuminated reticle!
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