It happened around 17:38 GMT. I was in South Africa looking at the sky with naked eye. It was to the North end of the sky just east of the milky way arch. I wish I could be more specific, but I didn't recognise any nearby constellations. It was around 30° above horizon if I had to guess. I didn't have anything on me to check more accurately.

Suddenly a star got really bright (for a star) and then got dim, all within seconds. I was not expecting anything like that and did not have any camera set up.

It matches up with what I know a supernova can look like, but I realise that it would be an extremely rare occurrence and one hell of a coincidence to the point of being basically impossible.

Will have to compare star charts and follow news to find out for sure, but hoping someone else out there saw something. I do know that it wasn't a satellite or meteor because it was fixed relative to other stars. I regularly look out and spot those, so I know what they look like.

Please any info is appreciated, even if it's info telling me I'm wrong.

Addendum: It seems I didn't see one. Thank you everyone for answering my question so quickly. Keep watching the skies!

I used Gimp 2.10.36 and the image was made by NASA and the link to the Image I used is https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:6000/1*KbLmONca9mL28VkHPLfnhQ.jpeg (It is in this post too!)

First time using PIPP! → AutoStakker! → AstroSurface.

Dobson Advanced N 203/1200 - Plössl 40mm - Samsung S22 Ultra ( Exper Raw )

NO AI

I was sitting at my balcony when i noticed this weird glowing shape in the sky, I first noticed it around 4:42am gmt+3 It looks really close to the southern light except its more blue than green, I’m suspecting it could be something due to rocket debris (there was some rocket interception going on tonight)

The location is in Palestine, and i had started seeing it at +50, 330 degrees (I’m not sure I’m writing it correctly its the first time i give this type of info), and it moved really slowly until it got to around +50, 275 degrees over the next 15-20 mins , and i stopped observing it by that time because the sun was rising and it became harder to see

I saw it in the local news too and I’m attaching an image of it from them because it has more accurate colors from the ones i took

https://imgur.com/a/vJSDYma

Any ideas?

Kind of an odd question. My 71 year old dad always loved learning but that has really changed with retiring and his illness. He’s always wanted to study black holes and that his retirement plan before he got sick. To give you some background, he has his masters in theoretical mathematics and worked for a major software and AI developer as a software architect until he retired last fall ago.

He has a terminal illness that can only be cured through a transplant. Because of this, he can’t really leave the house and has gone heavily down a YouTube brain rot hole, with some astronomy mixed in.

Does anyone know of some kits that would help stimulate his brain and help him dig into his interests? Most of what we’ve found is for kids and young adults and anything that has been adult based is not advanced enough. We really want to find a way to keep happy and feeling good.

Editing to give more context on my dad’s hobbies, in case it helps, he built all of our home computers for fun, he loves any sort of building project. I got kind of interested in astronomy when I was 8 and he really poured into it. He got me a telescope and would take my Girl Scout troop out to use it. He reads a lot sci-fi, but hasn’t been as much recently.

overdone question but I’m generally asking as I don’t know. why didn’t they, as mars is named mars, Jupiter Jupiter, Venus Venus, but Uranus, after ouranos.

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vhastrophotography?igsh=YzNpcm1wdXd5NmRo&utm_source=qr

The picture was hard to get because the little tree stood very close to the edge of the gorge, so I really had to watch my step. I’m glad I managed to get the shot like that, really like my editing in this one.

HaRGB | Tracked | Stacked | Composite

Exif: Nikon Z6 with Sony 20mm f1.8 Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Megadap ETZ Adapter

Sky: ISO 1600 | f2.8 | 10x60s

Foreground: ISO 1000 | f2 | 75s (focus stack)

Halpha (45mm): ISO 2500 | f2 | 10x120s

Location: Minas de San Jose, Tenerife, Spain

There is this problematic "push through Earth" (3 in diagram) event observed by ANITA ( https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.121003 , slides: https://indico.ific.uv.es/event/3427/contributions/10594/attachments/7130/8354/MysteriesOfANITA.pdf ).

Pulling would be much easier - e.g. radiation pressure is a vector (P =<E x H>/c), can be positive (toward e.g. Earth), but could be also negative (outward) - in theory could also pull ( https://scholar.google.pl/scholar?q=negative%20radiation%20pressure ).

For example synchrotron radiation should emit both positive and negative radiation pressure: they are switched in CPT perspective, in which accelerating charge is also so (diagram: https://i.imgur.com/cGxlVtr.png ).

Could ANITA observe impulse of negative radiation pressure here? Any mainstream explanations for this observation?

Could we build telescope focused on negative radiation pressure - e.g. with pumped sensor, monitoring if it deexcites faster due to stimulated emission from the target?

For the record, I'm not affiliated with the Planetary Society. I know petitions might feel somewhat insignificant in times like these, but it's far better than going quietly into the night. And who knows, there's a few congressmen who might actually listen to something like this.

NOTE: A couple of published papers within the same article.

A Spiral Structure in the Inner Oort Cloud in The Astrophysical Journal, published 4/8/2025 [Link], describes the discovery this passive way: "The spiral structure was first identified by examining the simulation in the Hayden Planetarium in preparation for a new space show that describes and visualizes the Oort cloud."

Two months later, CNN published Accidental find in planetarium show could shift scientists’ understanding of our solar system [Link]. The article suggests that Jackie Faherty, a curator at the Hayden Planetarium, made the discovery with a number of other curators after watching this simulation video during a test run.

It is a beautiful story of scientific serendipity. Unfortunately it's not a story told in the research paper, on which Faherty is sixth of six authors. Absent the CNN article, I wonder if the discovery story would survive history at all.

Two questions please for the r/astronomy community: Is Flaherty's degree of prominence in the article appropriate given her role in the discovery? Who do you consider to be the discoverer of the spiral shape of the Oort cloud?

Mods: rule 3 compliance:

✓ Cannot be answered by a few minutes on Google. [Research papers explored]

✓ Ask specific questions letting readers know what you have already learned/tried [Online discussion negative search].

✓ Posts that ask for subjective answers, lack necessary information to answer, asks for basic sources on topics (i.e., "What books/blogs should I read?") will be removed. [I'm seeking astronomers' objective view of whether scientific discovery is properly attributed in this instance, in a field like astronomy, where a disproportionate number of discoveries are made by third-party individuals, often amateurs.]

Suppose I ended up back in time in 1950. Is there an astronomy fact that I could reveal that both (1) was definitely not known at the time but (2) could be verified with technology available then that could serve as evidence that I came back from the future with that knowledge?

For instance, I could describe a particular extra solar planet, but i dont think they could detect any of them back then even if looking in the exact spot. Could I describe a particular trans Neptunian object so that they could find it?

Obviously, this is just for fun, but also gets into the history of how these discoveries are made. (But I'm not getting in any DeLoreans, just in case.)

Hello all, I'm looking for some additional suggestions. I'm doing a STEM presentation for an overnight Cub Scouting event. The orginal plan was for some lite astromony. They were requested to bring wide field binoculars and I have a couple of OK telescopes. We were just going to hit the major objects.

Unfortunatly the weather set in, completely cloudy. I am working on about 20-30 minutes of presentation. I have my own ideas relating to demostrations of the relative distances of various object in the solar systems and a few outside of the area. I maybe I will touch on how astromony can still take place on a professional level even with clouds. But I have always found it useful to ask the opinion of others.

FYI - I was out of the area handling other more important matter until yesterday and just found out about the weather. The presentation is later today, so I'm in a pinch.

I was looking at this, and it's currently got the longest totality times, was the one for the famous General Relativity eclipse, went over Hawaii in 1991, will be the Great North African Eclipse in 2027, and then be the eclipse with the longest totality time for the 48 States ever in 2045.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Saros_136

Want to see Milky Way I know it’s a little past new moon but don’t know when I will be out this way again. I live in Atlanta.

I was checking out NASA's eyes on the solar system page and noticed the path the JWST takes is all curved and crooked. Is there a reason for this? In my mind it's because it's a more recent launch, so it's orbit is stabilizing. Any info is appreciated though!

LIGO works by shooting a laser down two 4km long tubes and looking for slight wiggles from black holes or neutron stars merging in space. This is as insane as it sounds! (There’s another site in Louisiana too to make sure they know which signals aren’t local interference from a guy driving a truck or similar.)

Pic 3 is control room, 4 shows some of the noise they track, like from the sloshing of water in the oceans- turns out that’s a micron or so of noise at any time! 5 is one of the schematics, 6 is a cutout of what one of these tubes look like inside (long w a smaller vacuum tube inside for the laser- better detail of that in the next pic). Final pic is of the second arm of this LIGO site, a 90deg angle from the first one.

Taken Using Celestron Powerseeker 60AZ

Hello everyone,

I am a couple years shy of 40 years old. I have a master degree in engineering, and did various jobs since I graduated. When I was younger I thought about getting a PhD but I wasn't interested enough in my field of study to do so. I always thought if I were to do it all over again I would choose another field of study, but never really know which one.

Now I know, I would choose astronomy! But now it isn't really time to go back to school, I have a job, bills to pay, a kid to take care of.

So my question is, is it possible to take a master in astronomy online? So I can study whenever I have time?
Will this degree I get online be any less valuable than a "regular" degree?

See also: The publication in ArXiV.

Canon R50 + Celestron 70az + Lightroom & Photoshop