iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The solution to the Parthenon Marbles issue could be simply that the British Museum opens a branch in Athens. They could call it the Attic

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

One galaxy, two supernovae. NGC7331 has given us two supernovae in the last 14 months. However, they were at least 8800 light years apart, so only sentient beings along our line of sight would have seen them this close together. 🔭

The same galaxy imaged in July '25 and Sept '26 showing two supernovae on different sides of the galaxy

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

A reminder that the next Total Solar Eclipse visible in Europe is on 2nd August 2027. Make a note in your colander.🔭

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

A collage from the Eclipse, as seen at the village of Ariza in Aragon. Many thanks to them for organising a number of observing spots. 🔭 The partial Sunset was an extra special bonus.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

One of the great things about France is that they have a nation-wide Nuits des Etoiles - over a weekend early in August, where local Astro societies have astronomy events🔭 Last night was at St Claud in Charente, lots of families and our SmartScope could show a variety of targets.

Five targets shown
Messier 13 - a globular cluster
Messier 16 - a star cluster with clouds of gas and dust (where new stars are forming)
Messier 27 - a planetary nebula (from an old star)
Messier 51 - two galaxies interacting
NGC 457 - the Owl cluster or the Dragonfly cluster depending on which way up you view it.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I'm not sure my SS50 🔭 has ever done such a 'sharp' image of a the Veil Nebula. A particularly clear night in Confolens tonight, after all the gunk from the fires recently. No additional processing, just 45 m of data

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Not only is the Moon in one of the lower 'summer' zodiac constellations, Capricorn, it's also tracking below the ecliptic because of the angle of it's orbit, so it'll not reach much above 15 degrees. Having to look through the mucky, atmosphere with all these wildfires. Seestar 🔭

The Full Moon looking very yellow, like an old smoker's fingers

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Took the SeeStar 🔭 out last night to capture the North America Nebula NGC 7000 for about 40 minutes. Stacked in Siril and a Histogram Stretch brought out more detail than I expected to be honest .

NGC 7000 - the nebula is shown as red shading, with a shape a bit like the Gulf of Mexico showing - hence its common name .

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Looks like someone's doing interferometry 🔭

Two radio telescopes at Jodrell Bank pointing in the same direction - on the right the Mark II telescope, with the larger Lovell Telescope on the right.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

A great photo-op when leaving an event at Jodrell Bank. 🔭

Image of the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank with sunset-lit clouds behind

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

People may have heard of the recent discovery of a Supernova in the galaxy NGC5907 - an edge-on Spiral Galaxy in the constellation Draco. The supernova (called SN2026kid) is still visible - here is an image taken this evening with a SeeStar50 over about 20 minutes. #astronomy

An image of an edge-on spiral galaxy, with two red bars identifying the site of the supernova about 1/4 distance out from the centre of the galaxy

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

#Artemis Possibly a good day to show this bargain we found in a French bric-a-brac shop last year

The cover of Paris Match from 15th July 1969 showing
'Neil Armstrong: désigné pour être le premier homme sur la Lune'
Translates as 'Neil Armstrong designated to be the first man on the Moon'

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Given it's #FossilFriday, I thought this might appeal to someone like @davehone.bsky.social Available in your nearest #Lidl

A box containing a "Magnetic Construction Set - Dinosaurs" showing front and rear halves of various dinosaurs that can be connected by magnetic links
Age 1+ apparently.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

🔭 I've known in principle that the different colours of aurorae are due to different elements at different heights, but the facts have never really 'stuck' in my mind. So I made this chart to help me remember.

Coloured horizontal bands representing the colours generated by aurorae. Above 180miles is red from Oxygen atoms, between 180 and 60miles is green from Oxygen, and below 60 miles is blue from Nitrogen.
A yellow band around 180 miles is due to a mix of red and green, a purple/lilac band around 60 miles is a mix of green and blue

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Perilune yesterday, and Apolune last April. Cloudy yesterday, so this is 20 hours later, but only about 800km further away than the closest approach. 13.6% larger #astronomy

On the left is a Half Moon taken today, just a few hours after Perilune, when the Moon is closest the Earth (~357,500 km away)
On the right is a Half Moon taken in April, just one hour after Apolune, when the Moon is furthest from the Earth (~406,300 km away)

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Ah, I see why people use things like StarNet to make #astro image processing easier. Here's my first use of it. Target is IC5146, the Cocoon Nebula in Cygnus. 225x10s Seestar images, stacked in Siril before having stars extracted. The starless image processed in Affinity and recombined. Left/Right

Two versions of the same image showing a nebula against a starry background. Left is the unprocessed original, the right has had the sky darkened to emphasise the nebulosity.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

So, who reckons you can image a Black Hole/X-Ray source with a Seestar? Surprisingly, you can (in a way) - The marked star is HD226868, the blue supergiant star that feeds the Black Hole X-Ray source Cygnus X1. It's about 1/2 degree from Eta Cygni (top right), so quite easy to find with binoculars 🔭

A star field with one bright star in the top right. This star is Eta Cygni (about half way along the 'neck' of the constellation Cygnus the Swan).
In the centre is a star marked with crosshairs, this is HD226868, the companion star (and source of material) that feeds the Black Hole that produces the X-Rays from Cygnus X1

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

@robinince.bsky.social - if we'd had more time, I'd have asked if you'd come across RIchard Ayoade's "The Unfinished Harauld Hughes'; a narrative on making of a documentary about a fictional author? Of course, Ayoade felt obliged to write his fictitious complete works in three accompanying volumes.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Was doing some #astronomy outreach at a local school, showing them the Sun and sunspots. Lots of things crossing its disc, some will be birds, but I think some might be satellites. Any thoughts? Oh, and stay to the end!

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Considering Lunar #Astronomy having observed the Earthshine on the 2 day old Moon last evening. As seen on the Moon, the Earthshine has almost 30x the overall brightness than the Full Moon gives on Earth. If there were any Lunar Astronomers, they'd really hate the Earth!

A thin crescent Moon, overexposed to show the effects of Earthshine on the non sunlit part of the Moon.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Considering Lunar #Astronomers: having observed the Earthshine on the 2 day old Moon last evening. As seen on the Moon, the Earthshine has almost 30x the overall brightness than the Full Moon gives on Earth. If there were any Lunar Astronomers, they'd really hate the Earth!

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Sidewalk #Astronomy for the Partial Solar Eclipse in NW England. Obscured by clouds, but you can see the dark side of the moon. More than 40 pairs of eclipse glasses given away.

A sequence of 15 images of the partial solar eclipse.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Rather than imaging a 'target' last night, I asked my #seestar50 to look at a relatively nondescript 'NGC' things in Coma Berenices: NGC 4274 and NGC4278. In only 65 minutes I imaged the home of billions of solar systems

A view of the sky (as if the tip of your thumb at arm's length) with a dark sky, lots of pinpoint stars and 3 'obvious' galaxies. There are several less obvious galaxies

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Love this - I'm pretty sure that geologists will agree, yes? @seismatters.bsky.social xkcd.com/3068/

XKCD cartoon "How to ask Geologists to identify a rock" First panel says the wrong way
Person 1 "Can you identify this rock I found"
Geologist "Not without knowing where you found it. It's difficult to identify minerals by sight without the geologic context"
Panel2 shows the right way
Person 1: "Can you identify this rock that I found wrapped in a $5 bill?"
Geologist: "Sure! Looks like garnets in a mica schist"

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Catching up with the latest Lovell Lecture at Jodrell Bank (Chaos at Cosmic Dawn) with Phil Bull - and we come out to this... #astronomy at top level photogenics

An image of the Lovell radio telescope pointing upwards at the Moon with Orion constellation to the left.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Science with the SeeStar, the advantage of having a fixed format rig. The observed size of the Sun's disc near Perihelion (375 pixels) and near Aphelion (363 pixels), demonstrating that the Earth's orbit is not circular. #astronomy

Two half images of the Sun, the upper being from January 2025, the lower from Kuly 2024 - the upper half is significantly bigger.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

The nice thing about the SeeStar is that it allows you to image things you've not heard of before. Last night's example being the Flaming Star Nebula IC 405

A star field with a bright star just right of centre, and red gas glowing to the left above and below.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Hi @sainsburys.bsky.social - I was in your Cheshire Oaks store yesterday when you decided to play a promotion for a new book by David Walliams over the tannoy. Please don't - he's an author that has consistently punched down on the poor, the old, the fat and the different. We do not need that.

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Owen Gwynne @owengwynne.bsky.social · 09/11/2023

A view of Venus just before the Moon moved in front of it. A fortunate gap in the clouds

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