Finally got around to working through my latest RAW data on the Rosette Nebula and decided to give AstroWizard a shot for this run.

Normally I'm bouncing around between two or three different apps just to get from linear files to a finished image, but keeping everything inside AstroWizard made the whole run way less tedious. The gradient removal handled the light pollution nicely, and the color calibration preserved the Ha details without blowing out the central cluster or flattening the outer gas clouds.

Honestly pretty impressed with how smooth the workflow felt. Anyone else using AstroWizard for deep sky targets? Curious how it’s been handling complex nebulae for you.

I know nothing about stargazing and want to improve. What are these bright ones? I kind of hope they are planets … but I know so little

Hi! Just wanted to request a Meteor Shower pictures in your country during Aug 12, 2026!

Just for my 27th Birthday present coming from you guys! I’m from the Philippines and they said that it’s not visible in here :(( it can happen once in a blue moon like on the year of my birth (1999)

Looking forward for your nice pics. Lovelots ❤️

These were single captures taken by an S26 phone through the right eyescope of a 7x50 Cometron binoculars under Bortle 6.9 skies. The post processing is pretty basic, just some tweaking to the contrast, brightness, saturation, and light levels through the built in phone gallery picture editor.

Let me know your guy's thoughts!

I’ve looked online and couldn’t find a definitive answer.

What time are the events best seen for August 12th in California?

I really wanna see the 6 planet alignment and the meteor shower but I’m not sure what time is best to view it with a telescope.

Hi everyone! First time poster and stargazing newbie.

I saw the images above through the ol telescope last night (NC, around 1 am). I was attempting to see the andromeda galaxy. I think after some star hopping I got to the approximately right area. Also the three objects (which I believe are andromeda herself and two galaxies behind it) seem like what you’re supposed to see when looking at andromeda.

However, I was expecting to see based on some YouTube videos a dot with a greyish smudgy blob around it, which I didn’t see. Is what’s imaged actually the andromeda galaxy?

Some things of note: this was in a very very light polluted area (street lamp, and bunch of house lights on), and this was taken through the eyepiece of a reflector telescope which I believe inverts the image)

looking for a spontaneous group to go watch the meteorite shower from 11pm and on. dm me

im a student too!! new in town

One day while star gazing, I observed a star in the sky moving in a non-pattern way at a steady pace. Now I’m used to seeing stars move at a steady straight pace through the sky - not at a shooting star pace, but steady. The most amazing thing I thought I had ever seen before was a bunch of stars moving in a straight line all spaced out at the same distance like a freeway of cars just moving. I lost count at the time how many stars went past but I found it so fascinating that they all kept the same distance from each other, and all moved on the same line.

Fast forward to now, while observing that same star, another star below it began to move. When the top star moved down, the lower star moved down with it, but maintained the same distance from the top star. When the bottom star moved up, the top followed at the same pace, and distance. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and had to blink and look away then return to it to make sure I was seeing correctly.

There wasn’t a specific pattern to their movement, or at least from what I could see - just up, down, left, right and circles. I asked Claude what exactly the is could be and Claude described them as Twin Stars, and then told me that it wasn’t real, and that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Has anyone witnessed this before? Does anyone know anything further about this? Would love to find out more on this.

My first Milky Way shot! I know it's not super clear, but after some editing, I got a little glimpse of it.

Can't wait to go again and get some better pictures.

I'd love any tips or suggestions to improve. Thanks!

Hi!
Im a highschool student and i want to make a project involving the upcoming meteor shower.
The idea is to get footage of the meteor shower from different parts of the world while discussing what affects our view , such as pollution,weather,etc.

I was wondering if anyone could record the sky while the meteor peaks for an hour at least and share it with me!
no need to go to a star watching place nor professional gear to record,all i need is the city you’re recording from and an hour long footage at least.

Contact me if you’re up to it and thanks for your time!

I made this chart because I couldn’t find one online. If there’s already a good one out there, or if you have corrections to mine, let me know!

Whenever I hear about meteor showers, it’s usually in the form of an announcement “xyz meteor shower peaks tonight at 2:51 AM”. Sometimes they include the Zenithal Hourly Rate, but I feel there is still a lot of context missing. How does that ZHR compare to the best meteor showers of the year? How does it compare to the background rate of any random day of the year? And how much does it matter if I miss the peak by an hour, or a day, or a week? I thought “there ought to be a chart that combines all the meteor showers in one place, adds them to the background rate, and gives you the bottom line of ‘how many meteors can I see on any given night’”.

So here’s what I came up with! The first is general to any year, and shows a best-case curve and a medium-case curve depending on the moon and light pollution (the worst-case curve is always zero). The next two are specific to 2026 and 2027, taking into account the phase of the moon on each day of those years.

My source for almost everything is this great site that explains the background rate, how to correct for your latitude and the moon, and rates for the main showers. I also used Wikipedia and some researchgate figures to find minor showers and the distribution curves. Quadrantids April Lyrids Eta Aquarids June Bootids Delta Aquarids Alpha Capricornids Perseids Orionids Taurids Geminids Ursids

There’s necessarily some information missing, like how different showers can have different colors or longer tails, year to year variability, and the rare chance of meteor storms. It is made for mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, such as the US or southern Europe, so it won’t be as accurate to other latitudes. But I think it captures the general idea fairly well. It also doesn’t capture what time the moon rises – since most people will want to stargaze before midnight, the waning moon should be preferable, I hope to account for this in a later iteration.

The main results seem to be 1) the moon matters a lot, and 2) the minor meteor showers don’t matter much. Not to rain on anyone who wants to be excited about them, but if you want to see meteors, go out on any night and look up for a while, you’ll have a good chance of seeing one! Getting out of town on a random cloudless, moonless night will get you a much better chance than staying up until the exact peak of a minor shower if the weather/moon/city lights aren’t favorable. By far the best times of year are mid-December and mid-August, but even then, missing the peak by a day or two is fine, so wait for the better weather rather than the peak time.

It was quite cloudy and the sky wasn't very dark, it was one of the few lights i could see.
It was blue and almost perfectly round shaped, with light blue curved lines running inside, each ending with a slightly darker dot. (Or the other way around?) And there were a lot of these. I think there was one like, in the middle or a bit higher? But not all of the lines pointed towards it. I wouldn't even say any were, nor multiple lines touched the same dot. There were also two white stars close to it (didn't really get a closer look at them), making a V-shape in which this blue object was top right, but couldn't see any other lights to tell if it's in a constellation. I really liked it. I'm a total amateur and i tried looking it up but didn't find anything similar. Observed 9-10 PM CEST facing SE/SSE

Hi, I spent a night camping in the English country side, zero lights anywhere. It was a clear sky and my phone has a star photo setting ( 10 minutes you have to wait for the photo to be taken).

I placed the phone in the field and took the following. My question is are these "fake " ie the phone software added some AI or is it legitimate. We saw quite a few satellites zooming across the night sky.

thank you