iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The "Little Rosette Nebula" Sh2-170 bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A new supernova in NGC7331 (SN2026aaiv), again after SN2025rbs last year. bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Abell 80 is a faint, highly evolved planetary nebula in the constellation Lacerta, at a distance of about 5,700 light-years from Earth. Discovered by George Abell on the photographic plates of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Solar Eclipse 20260812: Baily's Beads and Prominences bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

time series of the 20260812 solar eclipse bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

right after the begin of totality (with the Sun marginally covered at the lower left side) gives a particular nice view of the major prominence (visible by naked eye) that coincided with the last contact region. bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

and finally a HDR composite bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

and a longer exposure to emphasize the Corona bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

two frist images from the eclipse, at the beginning and shortly before the end of totality bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Saturday. 05h00. Equipment test for next Wednesday: bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

The system is cataloged twice in Chip Arp's famous Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies: Arp 25 highlights the unusual one-armed morphology of NGC 2276, while Arp 114 refers to the interacting pair as a whole. bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

NGC5832 in Ursa minor bit.ly/4wyBeu3 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Leaving Paranal ... bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

A rare shot onto the Extremely Large Telescope form a construction platform some 55m high (went where few man/woman have gone before)

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Laser-Airplane interaction over Paranal last night testing the automated airplane detection system of Gravity+. 2890: plane approaching, 2891: plane crossing (laser is dimmer as it was partially switched off), 2892: laser on again. 30sec exposures

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Sunset at La Silla Observatory with Venus and Jupiter teaming up. somewhat later, Mercury joined the party

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

sunset at La Silla Observatory with Venus and Jupiter teaming up

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Scorpio region north of the Galactic center taken from La Silla bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Abell 2151, the Hercules Galaxy Cluster, is a rich and dynamically active cluster of galaxies. Abell 2151 is notable for a high fraction of spiral galaxies, indicating that the cluster is still in the process of formation bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#Astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Messier 85 and NGC 4394 form an intriguing pair of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, representing two very different stages of galactic evolution within the same field of view. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#Astrophotographie🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Sh2-176 is a very faint and relatively little-imaged evolved planetary nebula in Cassiopeia. Unlike compact, high-excitation planetary nebulae, Sh2-176 is highly evolved: the expelled shell has expanded and diluted over time bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#Astrophotographie🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

NGC4051 is a fascinating barred spiral galaxy located about 33 million ly away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is both, an astrophysically relevant object and an excellent, visually intriguing target for deep-sky imaging. bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#Astrophotographie🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

NGC2903, a SBbc galaxy in Leo bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

M65 and M66 in the constellation Leo bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

NGC4319 and friends: 3 galaxies, a quasar and a star bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

went off on the night of April 21. I got a chance to image NGC5907 despite a bright Moon last night and also had a reference image (app.astrobin.com/i/no29uz) from 2 years ago. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography🔭📷

app.astrobin.com

NGC5906/5907 in Draco - the splinter galaxy - AstroBin

NGC5907, also known as the knife-edge galaxy or the splinter galaxy, is an essentially bulgeless Sc galaxy which we can see nearly edge on, thus revealing very prominent dust lanes. Its peculiarity i...

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

NGC5907 is most well known for its very extended and multiple wrapped tidal tail - unfortunately one needs a very dark sky and long exposure times to capture that. But approaching full Moon, NGC5907 had a surprise for light-polluted city people: SN2026kid which

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

NGC3628 - the hamburger galaxy bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Bode's galaxy M81, 2026 edition bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#astrophotography🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

More night sky from my trip with @dorobaer and Bavarian science minister @markusblume75 to @esoastronomy Paranal Observatory. The only clouds over Paranal are the Magellanic Clouds. Only had 20 min before the Moon came out. bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Had the pleasure and privilege to accompany science minister @dorobaer.bsky.social and delegation to @eso.org Paranal Observatory. Good time to take a shot of Orion and surroundings, though I only had 1 hour before the near full moon came out ... bit.ly/4lB3t68 📷#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Yep, for another object of the Maffei group, the hidden galaxy IC342, I showed that effect by dereddening the absorption app.astrobin.com/i/qe6m2a

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Lensed QSOs are of increasing interest as they provide an independent method to measure the Hubble's constant and thus may eventually help explaining the tension between local measurements (based on Cepheids etc) and thus derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

QSO 0957+561 is located at a redshift of about 1.41, i.e. 8.7 billion light-years away - quite a deep peek from my backyard …!

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

About 10 arcmin north of NGC3079 (at about 1 o'clock see also annotated image revision B on astrobin) is the famous Twin Quasar QSO 0957+561, aka PGC 2518326, the first gravitationally lensed QSO discovered in 1979.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

NGC 3079 is a close to edge-on barred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major. Its distance is about 50 Million light-years. According to SIMBAD it is a Seyfert II galaxy, ie it exhibits nuclear activity. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷 36 Sek.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Maffei 1, the closest giant elliptical would also be among the 10 brightest galaxies on the sky, but it is absorbed by almost 5mag of dust.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

The best known member, IC342 - the hidden galaxy - would be visible by the naked eye, but substantial extinction by the Milky Way (the so-called zone of avoidance) make it to a rather faint object.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

I have to admit I am quite intrigued by the Maffei Group. At a distance of only 10 Mpc, it is the galaxy group closest to the Local group. Yet, many of its members were only discovered some 50 years ago in infrared exposure.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

My attempt on Maffei 2 - a pretty sizeable disk galaxy, but hidden behind the Galactic dust curtain - so only very few images can be found on astrobin. I had to stretch it rather aggressively to get the faint structure show up prominently. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

NGC 2681 is a lenticular galaxy in Ursa Major, presenting a bright nucleus embedded within a smooth, softly fading disk. Closer inspection reveals subtle structure in its inner regions, where traces of dust and faint stellar features hint at a more dynamic past. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Together with the disk galaxy Maffei-2 and the “hidden galaxy” IC342, Maffei-1 form the so called Maffei Group, one of the closed galaxy groups to the Milky Way with all its members sharing the same fate of being heavily obscured by the Milky Way and its dust.

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Maffei-1 is the closest giant Elliptical to the Milky Way with a distance ~4Mpc. With a clear line of sight, Maffei-1 would be one of the brightest galaxies on the night sky. However, Maffei 1 suffers from almost 5 mag of extinction making it a hidden marvel. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Reposted by Matthias Steinmetz

Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) @aippotsdam.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

🌈 Polarlichter über Potsdam – Letzte Nacht löste eine starke Sonneneruption Polarlichter über Potsdam aus. ☀️ 🌌Dieses Naturschauspiel entsteht, wenn energiereiche Teilchen der Sonne mit dem Erdmagnetfeld und der Atmosphäre in Wechselwirkung treten. 🔭 #polarlichter #auroraboreal #potsdam

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Interesting trivia: NGC2419 would be the brightest and best visible Globular Cluster for an observer in Andromeda who takes a more detailed look at the Milky Way bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷

bit.ly

Home - The Universe from my Backyard

Imaging the wonders of the Universe from light-polluted suburbia by Matthias Steinmetz

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

The Globular Cluster NGC 2419 also runs under the name “intergalactic wanderer” as its 3 billion year orbit around the Milky Way takes it to distances from the Galactic center more remote than the Magellanic Clouds, so indeed a wanderer between the worlds. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

I finished a nice year of astrophotography with another @astrobin_com debut - the apparent galaxy pair UGC 3574 and UGC 3569. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography 🔭📷

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Matthias Steinmetz @galacticrave.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Arp 206 a.k.a. NGC3432 is an edge-on SBm galaxy which is interacting with UGC 5983, a nearby dwarf galaxy. bit.ly/4lB3t68 🔭#astrophotography

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