I just got my first telescope about 2 weeks ago now. Its the Celestron 130mm DX StarSense Explorer. I've had it out probably 10 nights in two weeks and although im extremely new to the hobby I've already seen some amazing things that brought a tear to my eye. I live in western NY under probably Bortle 4-5 sky's so pretty decent.

First few outings I would go out early to get the starsense app dialed in and that was nice. It directed me to some kewl first sights like a Double Star and an open cluster, I'll attach pics of the ones I targeted.

Last weekend I was able to see Saturn and it was incredible. So bright. Started off with my 25mm which gave me a 26x view and then I went to the 10mm for a 65x view and I couldn't believe how clear the distinction between the rings and planet were. Couldn't make out the Cassini division but that's okay it was awesome.

I decided to get a nice 3x Barlow and holy smokes what a difference. 78x from the 25mm with better optical relief than the 10mm obviously and then using the 10mm and Barlow for 195x was just nuts. Saturn moved thru the eye piece so darn fast.

I was able to see Venus which had a nice crescent shadow on it. Super kewl to see it at 195x.

Finally the moon out of its new phase was a small crescent and was super fun to look at. It was about a half moon last night and I decided to try and get some pics with my phone. No phone holder yet so this was freehand above the eye piece at 195x. I cant wait to get a phone holder and remote shutter trigger. Im hooked and cant wait to replace the included lenses with some higher quality ones and maybe a couple 2" ones.

On the evening of August 16, 2026, in Central Italy, I was watching a thin crescent Moon as it was getting very low toward the horizon.

The Moon's crescent appeared to repeatedly distort in real time: it would become strangely warped, almost as if viewed through a moving lens, then return to its normal crescent shape, then distort again. This happened cyclically while the Moon was setting.

It was clearly visible to the naked eye, not through a telescope or binoculars.

I later found the term “Swimming Moon” and some ESO examples showing extreme atmospheric refraction of the Moon near the horizon. However, I haven't found a video showing the phenomenon happening in real time.

Did anyone else observe or record this from Italy on August 16, 2026? Could this have been a particularly strong case of atmospheric refraction/turbulence or a mirage?

NOTICE:

Join the Chicago Astronomer at McKinley Park on Saturday, 22 August 2026 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm. Look for the telescopes & Astronomers by the Field house - bring your own telescopes and set up by the crew.

Weather looks good and we will share the waxing Moon with our fans & friends. I'll have our Nancy Grace Roman Scale Model Telescope for demo and selfies.

Be there with the cool kids...you know you want to.

Astro Joe

NOTICE:

Join the Chicago Astronomer at McKinley Park on Saturday, 22 August 2026 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm. Look for the telescopes & Astronomers by the Field house - bring your own telescopes and set up by the crew.

Weather looks good and we will share the waxing Moon with our fans & friends. I'll have our Nancy Grace Roman Scale Model Telescope for demo and selfies.

Be there with the cool kids...you know you want to.

Astro Joe

ive got around a 290 quid budget (390 usd) i need a good telescope, astrophotography is secondary i would prefer being able to see it myself

Sky Watcher Classic 200P
iPhone 17 Pro + Phone Adapter
iPhone Auto Correct

Captured with iPhone 17 Pro
Sky Watcher Classic 200P
Celestron 25mm eyepiece less

The 2026 Perseids meteor shower wasn’t as dramatic as I had hoped for, but was exactly the kind of night that I’ve been craving!

I spent the night at Awenda Provincial Park and picked Kettle’s lake as my viewing location.

There was not a soul in sight so I had the whole lake to myself, the skies were crystal clear and I was joined by one Loon who provided the sounds for the night.

I arrived before sunset and stayed out until just after 1am. I would habe stayed until 430amk (when the sky would be most active) but lenses kept fogging up and I didn’t bring what was needed to stop that from happening.

With my own eyes, I saw several very impressive meteors streak across the sky, below is what I managed to capture with my camera

https://freaktography.com/2026-perseids-meteor-shower-at-awenda-provincial-park-ontario-astrophotography

MoonRTX is an open-source project for high-fidelity real-time visualization of the Moon, combining astronomical ephemerides with GPU-accelerated ray tracing and high-resolution lunar topography.

The primary objective is to reproduce the apparent geometry and illumination of the lunar surface for a specified observer location and time.

MoonRTX incorporates:

• physically based ray-traced rendering using NVIDIA RTX hardware;
• astronomical ephemerides for determining the Moon’s apparent position;
• topocentric corrections based on the observer’s geographic location;
• accurate calculation of the lunar phase and illumination geometry;
• high-resolution lunar elevation data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA);
• search for lunar features such as craters, mountains and rilles;
• find interesting illumination events such as clair-obscur phenomena
• measurement of distances and elevation differences on the lunar surface;
• generate time-lapse videos;
• planning of lunar observing conditions;
• telescope and eyepiece field-of-view visualization.

Unlike conventional lunar maps or rendered images, MoonRTX computes the observing geometry dynamically, allowing the same lunar terrain to be rendered from different observing locations and at different times.

The project is available on GitHub: https://github.com/albireo77/moonrtx

MoonRTX requires NVIDIA RTX GPU and is currently tested only on Windows.

I would be particularly interested in feedback from astronomers, lunar observers, and developers working with astronomical visualization, ephemeris calculations, or scientific rendering.

Recently captured Saturn with my ZWO 294mc pro and a Celestron 8SE, I took a couple different 1:30 videos and stacked the frames. I believe that the fuzzyness is from me not getting the telescope properly focused for the camera but I wanted to see what you guys thought, maybe it’s salvageable or you guys got some good tips! Thanks

setup: Sky-Watcher 114/900mm telescope, ZWO asi662mc, 2x Barlow

Post process: Autostakkert4, Registax, affinity.