r/Astronomy • u/VoijaRisa • Mar 27 '20
Hi all,
Friendly mod warning here. In r/Astronomy, somewhere around 70% of posts get removed. Yeah. That's a lot. All because people haven't bothered reading the rules or bothering to understand what words mean. So here, we're going to dive into them a bit further.
The most commonly violated rules are as follows:
Pictures
Our rule regarding pictures has three parts. If your post has been removed for violating our rules regarding pictures, we recommend considering the following, in the following order:
If you took the picture or did substantial processing of publicly available data, this counts. If not, it's going to be removed.
2) You must have the acquisition/processing information.
This needs to be somewhere easy for the mods to verify. This means it can either be in the post body or a top level comment. Responses to someone else's comment, in your link to your Instagram page, etc... do not count.
3) Images must be exceptional quality.
There are certain things that will immediately disqualify an image:
However, beyond that, we cannot give further clarification on what will or will not meet this criteria for several reasons:
So yes, this portion is inherently subjective and, at the end of the day, the mods are the ones that decide and the mods are under no obligation to explain this decision to you.
If you are informed that your post was removed because of image quality, arguing about the quality will not be successful. In particular, there are a few arguments that are false or otherwise trite which we simply won't tolerate. These include:
"You let that image that I think isn't as good stay up"
"Pictures have to be NASA quality"
"You have to have thousands of dollars of equipment"
"This is a really good photo given my equipment"
"This isn't being friendly to beginner astrophotographers"
"My post was getting a lot of upvotes"
Using the above arguments will not wow mods into suddenly approving your image. It will result in a ban.
Trying to argue with the mods using bad arguments isn't going to fly.
Lastly, it should be noted that we do allow astro-art in this sub. Obviously, it won't have acquisition information, but the content must still be original and mods get the final say on whether on the quality (although we're generally fairly generous on this).
Questions
This rule basically means you need to do your own research before posting.
To prevent your post from being removed, tell us specifically what you've tried. Just saying "I GoOgLeD iT" doesn't cut it.
Furthermore, when telling us what you've tried, we will be very unimpressed if you use sources that are prohibited under our source rule (social media memes, YouTube, AI, etc...).
As with the rules regarding pictures, the mods are the arbiters of how difficult questions are to answer. If you're not happy about that and want to complain that another question was allowed to stand, then we will invite you to post elsewhere with an immediate and permanent ban.
Object ID
We'd estimate that only 1-2% of all posts asking for help identifying an object actually follow our rules. Resources are available in the rule relating to this. If you haven't consulted the flow-chart and used the resources in the stickied comment, your post is getting removed. Seriously. Use Stellarium. It's free. It will very quickly tell you if that shiny thing is a planet which is probably the most common answer. The second most common answer is "Starlink". That's 95% of the ID posts right there that didn't need to be a post.
Do note that many of the phone apps in which you point your phone to the sky and it shows you what you are looing at are extremely poor at accurately determining where you're pointing. Furthermore, the scale is rarely correct. As such, this method is not considered a sufficient attempt at understanding on your part and you will need to apply some spatial reasoning to your attempt.
Pseudoscience
The mod team of r/astronomy has several mods with degrees in the field. We're very familiar with what is and is not pseudoscience in the field. And we take a hard line against pseudoscience. Promoting it is an immediate ban. Furthermore, we do not allow the entertaining of pseudoscience by trying to figure out how to "debate" it (even if you're trying to take the pro-science side). Trying to debate pseudoscience legitimizes it. As such, posts that entertain pseudoscience in any manner will be removed.
Outlandish Hypotheticals
This is a subset of the rule regarding pseudoscience and doesn't come up all that often, but when it does, it usually takes the form of "X does not work according to physics. How can I make it work?" or "If I ignore part of physics, how does physics work?"
Sometimes the first part of this isn't explicitly stated or even understood (in which case, see our rule regarding poorly researched posts) by the poster, but such questions are inherently nonsensical and will be removed.
Sources
ChatGPT and other LLMs are not reliable sources of information. Any use of them will be removed. This includes asking if they are correct or not.
Content
Due to the profusion of AI slop apps, we're no longer allowing apps at all. No, we don't care if you're wanting a "review". No we don't care if they're free. No we don't care if you put it in a website.
Bans
We almost never ban anyone for a first offense unless your post history makes it clear you're a spammer, troll, crackpot, etc... Rather, mods have tools in which to apply removal reasons which will send a message to the user letting them know which rule was violated. Because these rules, and in turn the messages, can cover a range of issues, you may need to actually consider which part of the rule your post violated. The mods are not here to read to you.
If you don't, and continue breaking the rules, we'll often respond with a temporary ban.
In many cases, we're happy to remove bans if you message the mods politely acknowledging the violation. But that almost never happens. Which brings us to the last thing we want to discuss.
Behavior
We've had a lot of people breaking rules and then getting rude when their posts are removed or they get bans (even temporary). That's a violation of our rules regarding behavior and is a quick way to get permabanned. To be clear: Breaking this rule anywhere on the sub will be a violation of the rules and dealt with accordingly, but breaking this rule when in full view of the mods by doing it in the mod-mail will 100% get you caught. So just don't do it.
Claiming the mods are "power tripping" or other insults when you violated the rules isn't going to help your case. It will get your muted for the maximum duration allowable and reported to the Reddit admins.
And no, your mis-interpretations of the rules, or saying it "was generating discussion" aren't going to help either.
While these are the most commonly violated rules, they are not the only rules. So make sure you read all of the rules.
r/Astronomy • u/Flame_Python • 16h ago
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These are computer generated renders of how some of the planets transits would look like from their nearest outer planetary neighbor. Done by me in Blender. I tried to make it as realistic as possible but if anything seems off in my calculations let me know.
r/Astronomy • u/Alex_Olariu • 12h ago
Taken with a SW Evostar 72ED, Nikon D5300 (Astro modified) with UV/IR cut and L eNhance filters, ISO 200, SW GTI, 110x300 of rgb and 111x300+63x600 of Ha and O3, under bortle 4.
r/Astronomy • u/Aauperk • 3h ago
I wanted to share my favourite picture from my first-ever attempt at astrophotography. I was able to capture the Milky Way in a Dark Sky Area (approximately Bortle 2-3), as well as the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. As a bonus, I also saw and captured some of the Aurora Australis, which was a lovely surprise.
This was captured ~45 minutes roughly east-southeast of Arrowtown, New Zealand on an extremely clear night just prior to the New Moon this month, using a Google Pixel (mounted on a very basic tripod stand) set to a 3-minute exposure duration. I've only made very rudimentary adjustments to exposure/contrast/brightness using native image editing tools, with the aim of bringing out more detail in the image. Otherwise, no further processing has been done.
r/Astronomy • u/No_Association_3200 • 2h ago
Wilson lake 💙
r/Astronomy • u/alch_emy2 • 7h ago
The end of year progress of the S24 Ultra phone.
Shot on bortle 8.5 skies, totalling ~66.2 hours across 16 nights. On my milestones of powers of two, this is my third last milestone of the project (the upcoming are 128 and 256 hours). Such is my second longest running project up to date, 8 hours shy of the Cygnus field.
This will also be my final picture with the S24 Ultra and one of my last without external telephoto help, but my phone astrophotography journey doesn't end here. I shall witness the true limits of phone cameras myself with better phone setups.
r/Astronomy • u/db720 • 4h ago
Last week i was out in Utah (Oct 7, 11 30pm) and shot a few astrophotography pics. I noticed that the milky way did not look as bright as other shots i had taken a few months ago, and the most reasonable explanation i could come up with is that the galactic center has an annual precession across the night sky - is that assumption correct ?
So we would be able to see the galactic center at a specific time (eg midnight ) for 6 months of the year? Astro pics i took around June at midnight seemed to have the brightest area about 45° up towards the south, so in 3 months, it would be below the horizon...
For north America (Utah/Colorado), what time of year is the center at its highest point at midnight, does it tie up to our summer here? That would mean Europe/Africa would not see the center in n. Hemisphere winter?
Last question: would the brighter band around the center if this pic mean that we are actually looking outwards from our galaxy up into the arm we are in? Or is this an outwards side-on view on 1 of the other galaxy arms adjacent to the 1 we are in?
What are key characteristics/ objects besides the intensity/ brightness that would help identify what section of the galaxy is in view?
Ps i think the horizon in view where you can see the roof of a tractor was towards the West, if i remember the shot correctly, if it makes a difference
r/Astronomy • u/Dree_141 • 4h ago
Took with:
Sony a7IV non astro modified
Canon fd 50 mm f 1.8
Lights: 30 sec x 112
Darks: 30 sec x 20
I used siril for stacking and graxpert and lightroom for editing. Hope you enjoy
r/Astronomy • u/Harz_marz • 20h ago
I’ve been waiting so long now to capture this target in the UK. I had been out imaging and was ready to go home but decided to try this as I could just see Orion’s Belt above the horizon.
This is a result of only 2 x 2 minute shots. I was shocked how much detail I was able to capture with such little integration time!
Shot with - 585mc Air, William Optics Redcat 51v3, AM3N and used an Optolong L extreme filter.
r/Astronomy • u/PuunBaby • 16h ago
Wasn't able to get Saturn in opposition but it still looks glorious and magnificent. I've been doing DSOs for a while and decided to go back to my planetary roots as I was getting the itch to capture the jewel of our solar system again with its current tilt showing off more of its rings compared to last year. Very happy with the result!
Telescope - Celestron 9.25" SCT
Mount - Celestron CGX
Imaging Train - ZWO ASI676MC
Capture - 90 Second video at ~300 fps
Software - Stacking in Autostakkert and Processing in Astrosurface
r/Astronomy • u/Loendemeloen • 6h ago
You can even see some background galaxies (if reddit doesn't compress them too far, hopefully it doesn't)
Because of a really idiotically placed light on the campground where i'm staying I could only use 94 subs out of the 275 I had taken. I'll try relocating and maybe getting more data tomorrow and if it turns out better i'll put it in the comments of this post.
30 second exposures
Svbony sv705c with uv/ir cut filter for true color
Omegon dobson advanced x n 254/1250
That OTA put on an EQ6I pro
Processed in Siril with the GraXpert script
No flats, only darks and biases. I don't really have a convenient way of taking flats with my 10 inch aperture haha.
Netherlands, bortle 4 (if it weren't for that stupid lamp).
r/Astronomy • u/MatthewD5005 • 11h ago
Took this picture of the North America and Pelican nebula with my widefield setup:
-TS PhotoLine 60
-Canon 500Da
-EQM35 with OnStep
-8x40 Finderscope + ASI662MC for guiding
80 x 180s (ISO800) Light frames
40 Flats
30 Darks
60 Bias
Processed with Siril, BlurX and NoiseX.
r/Astronomy • u/noob_astro • 14h ago
Acuter 40
Touptek 678 mono
SW solar quest
1200 best frames stacked
Stacked in PIPP and AS4
IMPGG: convolution, sharpening and inversion
PI: solar tools - contrast, color
PS: Color balance and saturation
Cropped in PSX
r/Astronomy • u/Key-Opinion-1700 • 1h ago
I'm not sure if something like this is even possible in the next 50 years but I hope so. Id love to see what the asteroid would have looked like approaching Earth standing 100 or 200 miles from the impact zone, and then seeing from that distance what the actual impact looked like. I'd imagine the more realistic the simulation looks the scarier it is to witness it, but it would still be super cool to see several angles of the impact maybe even from space say 50 or 100 miles up (would you be affected that high up? probably) that would be awesome.
r/Astronomy • u/Horst__Schlemmer • 16h ago
r/Astronomy • u/paulydavis • 1h ago
I rediscovered Rosette data from early this year that I had forgotten I had and never got around to processing. Here are two interpretations of the same data: a red/cyan non-SHO narrowband version first, followed by SHO in gold/blue. Both use the same crop.
Going back to the linear stacks helped clean up uneven background and color mottling while preserving the faint outer wisps. Stars and nebula were processed separately, with restrained sharpening, noise reduction, and star reduction.
Captured from my backyard in approximately Bortle 6.5 skies. Which palette do you prefer, and how does the background balance look?
Acquisition:
• Askar V at approximately 387 mm focal length
• ZWO ASI2600MC Air; gain 200, offset 50, -10°C
• ZWO AM3 mount
• D1 (Hα/OIII): 31 × 300 s = 2 h 35 m
• D2 (SII/OIII): 45 × 300 s = 3 h 45 m
• Total selected integration: 6 h 20 m (76 exposures)
• Backyard, approximately Bortle 6.5
• Observing nights: January 30–31, February 4–5, and February 5–6, 2026 (Texas local time).
Processing: integration into separate D1 and D2 stacks; background modeling and gradient/color-mottling correction from the linear data; PixInsight BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, and StarXTerminator; nonlinear stretching; separate nebula/star adjustments; masked contrast and color refinement in Photoshop; restrained star reduction and final crop.
The SHO rendering maps SII/Hα/OIII to RGB with a gold/blue finish. The red/cyan non-SHO rendering is another narrowband interpretation of the same data, not broadband natural color.
r/Astronomy • u/Photon_Pharmer1 • 1d ago
Hard crop / "zoomed in" of full res image.
I’ve included the workflow below to the best of my recollection, though it doesn’t include all of the various curve tweaks that ended up being more of a loop than a curve.
Workflow:
WBPP → Crop → BXT Correct Only → GraXpert → Full BXT → NoiseX → (LinearFit/NBN) → SHO combine → plate solve → (SPCC NB) → StarX → GHS → Curves → SCNR/selective color → LHE/contrast Large and small passes → NoiseX w color separation→ masks → Curves → process stars (Seti Astro NB to RGB Stars+Histo+Masks) → recombine → final crop → export JPG 95%
r/Astronomy • u/MrThePuppy • 1d ago
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I made this video from public NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory data, using my own processing code. It shows the X8.2 flare of 10 September 2017 at the Sun's western edge (sunspot region 12673). This was the second largest flare of solar cycle 24, and it launched what Liu et al. (2018, ApJL 864, L24) called a "truly global" EUV wave.
Color shows temperature, from violet (0.4 million K) through green (about 2 million K) to red (16 million K). Brightness shows how much plasma is at that temperature. I scaled each temperature separately so that the faint hot plasma shows up next to the cooler corona. White marks pixels where the flare saturated the detectors. Earth is shown to scale at top left.
How I made it:
Data: I downloaded the six extreme-ultraviolet channels of SDO's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (94, 131, 171, 193, 211 and 335 Å). That's one image per channel per minute from 15:25 to 17:00 UT, 576 images in all, from the Joint Science Operations Center: http://jsoc.stanford.edu (series aia.lev1_euv_12s).
Calibration: I corrected the pointing and aligned the images with aiapy, binned them 2x2 (1.2 arcseconds, about 870 km per pixel), and estimated the noise in every pixel.
Temperature: for every pixel of every frame (4 million pixels in each of 96 frames), I solved for the differential emission measure, which is the amount of plasma at each temperature. I used AIA's temperature response and the regularized inversion of Plowman & Caspi (2020), which I implemented in my open-source Python package utu: https://github.com/sun-data/utu
Color: I turned each temperature distribution into a color with my open-source package colorsynth, which spreads temperature across the visible spectrum like a prism: https://github.com/sun-data/colorsynth
Rendering: each video pixel is one data pixel. The whole run took several hours on my workstation.
Data: NASA/SDO and the AIA science team.
r/Astronomy • u/trevorbutrum • 12h ago
Hi everyone!
I recently launched a new citizen science project on Zooniverse to classify overlapping galaxies. These objects are extremely interesting to us because they can be used to directly measure dust attenuation (absorption and scattering of light). These measurements help us better measure distances and much more. We would appreciate your help classifying these objects and building a much larger catalog of them for future studies!
If you want to learn even more, please check out our blog post as well: https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2026/09/22/announcing-the-overlap-zoo-project/
Thank you for your time,
Trevor Butrum - Overlap Zoo Team Lead
r/Astronomy • u/Sea_Firefighter3963 • 1d ago
I photographed saturn last month with my 10 inch skywatcher dobsonian and wanted to share this with you :) best 25% of 28k frames stacked.
Camera used: ZWO ASI 662mc
processing: pipp, autostakkert3, registax
r/Astronomy • u/jcat47 • 1d ago
✨EXPOSURE DETAILS 🌌
🎯 Target: Question Mark/Teddy Bear Nebula
🔭 Telescope: William Optics Spacecat51 V1
📷 Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC - Pro
🏗️ Mount: ZWO AM5 w/TC40
🎯 Guide Scope and Camera: William Optics UniGuide + ZWO 290mm mini
🌈 Filters: Optolong L-eXtreme
🌌 Bortle Scale: 4
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lowell_astrophotography?exln=M3FjZXEycTUyZGg5
⏱️ INTEGRATION TIME
⚪ 180 sec x 366
Total Integration: 18h 18m
💻 Control: ASIAIR Plus
⚙️ Editing: PixInsight + Lightroom
r/Astronomy • u/Newhorizons1975 • 1d ago
Tomada con dwarf mini, mosaico 1 por 1,5,total capturas 200, obturador 45 ganancia 60, filtro duo band, apilado y procesado con stelar studio y snapseed.
r/Astronomy • u/Techno-Scientist • 1d ago
I shot this object in August but hadn't processed it yet because I thought I wouldn't have enough broadband data to bring out the dust around the nebula, but it turns out I did! I quite like this one :)
Equipment and acquisition:
- Askar 71F (no reducer)
- ASI585MC Air
- Teseek 17 mount
- Svbony 30mm + asi120mm guide camera
- ZWO EAF, ZWO EFW
- Broadband data: 119 x 120 sec
- L-Ultimate data: 41 x 300 sec
- 30 darks, 30 flats for each filter type, 30 bias
Processing (PI)
WBPP, blurX correct only, noiseX 65%, starX. Setiastro statistical stretch, then manual curves transformation with different range masks, enhance dark nebula script. For L-ultimate data, split RGB then used R channel to combine with broadband. Stars: setiastro star stretch, final star recombination in Pixinisight
r/Astronomy • u/madam_bologna • 1d ago
Rebel t7
Rokinon 10mm f2.8
3200 ISO
30 second exposure
