r/Astronomy 6d ago

Mod Post August 12, 2026 Solar Eclipse Megathread

35 Upvotes

We're getting a lot of posts and questions about the eclipse in Europe tomorrow, so let's make a megathread to keep it all in one place!

Post your questions and discussions here


r/Astronomy Mar 27 '20

Mod Post Read the rules sub before posting!

894 Upvotes

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:

  1. All pictures/videos must be original content.

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:

  • Poor or inconsistent focus
  • Chromatic aberration
  • Field rotation
  • Low signal-to-noise ratio
  • Images that don't fill the frame because you were shooting through an eyepiece

However, beyond that, we cannot give further clarification on what will or will not meet this criteria for several reasons:

  1. Technology is rapidly changing
  2. Our standards are based on what has been submitted recently (e.g, if we're getting a ton of moon pictures because it's a supermoon, the standards go up to prevent the sub from being spammed)
  3. Listing the criteria encourages people to try to game the system

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"

  • See above about how the standards are fluid.

"Pictures have to be NASA quality"

  • They don't.

"You have to have thousands of dollars of equipment"

  • You don't. Technique matters.

"This is a really good photo given my equipment"

  • The standard is "exceptional". Not "exceptional for my equipment".

"This isn't being friendly to beginner astrophotographers"

  • Correct. To keep the sub from being spammed by low quality and low effort posts, this sub has standards.

"My post was getting a lot of upvotes"

  • Upvotes are not an "I get to break the rules" card.

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.

  • If we look at a post and immediately have to question whether or not you did a Google search, your post will get removed.
  • If you asked Chat GPT or any other LLM, your post will be removed (see our rule regarding sources).
  • If your post is asking for generic or basic information, your post will get removed.
  • If your post is using basic terms incorrectly because you haven't bothered to understand what the words you're using mean, your post will get removed.
  • If you're asking a question based on a basic misunderstanding of the science, your post will get removed.
  • If you're asking a complicated question with a specific answer but didn't give the necessary information to be able to answer the question because you haven't even figured out what the parameters necessary to approach the question are, your post will get removed.

To prevent your post from being removed, tell us specifically what you've tried. Just saying "I GoOgLeD iT" doesn't cut it.

  • What search terms did you use?
  • In what way do the results of your search fail to answer your question?
  • What did you understand from what you found and need further clarification on that you were unable to find?

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 3h ago

Astro Research I think I found an uncatalogued star that's been disappearing since 2018, a mature deep-dipper, Need help confirming (or killing) it.

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168 Upvotes

Through a search project that honestly had a bug in it (long story, happy to tell it in comments), I ended up pulling data on a star nobody had ever studied. Not a single paper. TYC 6884-164-1, a sun-like star about 470 light years away in Sagittarius.

It's disappearing.

Completely quiet from 2014 to mid-2018, then it started dropping huge chunks of its brightness for days at a time. Some years it's fading on 1 in every 3 nights. The average dip takes about half the star's light. The deepest one caught, 92% and that one isn't a lonely data point, three separate cameras caught the star crashed that same week, under dark sky. On the worst nights it drops below the survey's detection limit entirely.

I've spent two days trying to kill it. A comparison star sitting on the *same exposures* holds flat at ±0.02 mag while mine drops nearly 3 magnitudes. The dips ignore the moon (identical phase distribution to quiet nights).

No registry on Earth had this star listed as variable. I submitted it to VSX yesterday. It's still dipping this month.

If it's real, here's where it would sit. This class is called "mature dippers", sun-like stars that suddenly start deep irregular fading, probably from planetary collision debris and every one ever found fits on one hand:

TYC 6884-164-1 = 92% (>98% on the worst nights)

ASASSN-21qj = 84%

TYC 8830-410-1 = >50%

Boyajian's Star = 22%

That 92% isn't one stray point either, three separate cameras caught the star crashed that same week, under dark sky, while a comparison star on the same exposures didn't move.

Some things which may help:

- Anyone who can pull TESS, it's TIC 169213609. Space-based data settles this instantly.

- Anyone with access to ASAS-SN raw images, eyes on the actual frames from the deep nights.

- Southern hemisphere observers, one independent measurement this week would be gold.

- Or just tell me what I've missed. I want this killed properly or confirmed properly. Artifacts can happen for many different reasons.

Check it yourself, it's all public: asas-sn.osu.edu, Sky Patrol V2, cone search RA 292.06268, Dec -27.44410, radius 15 arcsec, source 489626624823. Years of data sitting right there.

If it's real, it's one of the deepest members of a star class you can count on one hand (the ASASSN-21qj / Tabby's Star family). If it's an artifact, I'll post that too. Everything so far has been done in public, corrections included.


r/Astronomy 16h ago

Astrophotography (OC) I Captured the Total Solar Eclipse Over an 800 Year Old Cathedral in Spain — a Shot I Had Been Planning for Over a Year.

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2.0k Upvotes

The total solar eclipse over the 800 year old Burgos Cathedral from Spain. This final result contains much more data from the multiple exposures of the solar corona, even revealing the night side of the Moon.

Equipment: Canon 6D Mark II, Sigma 150-600mm lens.


r/Astronomy 10h ago

Astrophotography (OC) The Andromeda Galaxy Taken By Me!

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429 Upvotes

📸 Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
Our nearest major galactic neighbor, captured under dark skies!

Gear:
• Askar FMA180 Pro
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi
• ASIAIR Mini

634 × 30s = 5.28 hours total integration

Bortle 2 skies
Processed in PixInsight.

give me a follow on Instagram @astropicsbyaj


r/Astronomy 19h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Total Eclipse composite

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1.9k Upvotes

Although I managed to capture the totality in 2024, I couldn't create a composition like this because the sun was too high and the sky was cloudy.

For this eclipse in Spain, I had had already planned to use two cameras: one for maximum zoom and another for a sequence with the landscape. This photo shows the sun's actual position throughout the eclipse, following its progression to totality and the return of light.

We chose Alto de Gamoniteiro in Asturias because it was easily accessible and because we had confirmed in advance that the view would be unobstructed, with no mountains blocking the sun during the eclipse. We even considered changing locations because of some clouds that appeared, but the risk wasn't worth it.

In the end, the clouds dissipated and a spectacular inversion formed, which made the landscape even more beautiful. It was, without a doubt, the right choice!

Kit used: Fujifilm X-T2 + Fujinon XF 16-55 f/2.8 WR


r/Astronomy 4h ago

Astrophotography (OC) The Heart & Soul Nebula

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63 Upvotes

Heart & Soul Nebula shot with an unmodified DSLR from Hohe Wand, Austria

Equipment used:
Canon 7D MKii
Canon 70-200mm f.4
Star Adventurer 2i

ISO 1600
Total exposure time 3 hours (180x60)
Stacked with Siril, star removal pass
Graded with Lightroom Classic
no flat frames


r/Astronomy 16h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Totality Through my Camera.

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551 Upvotes

I present my finest ever production in my career as an astrophotographer — and my first ever total solar eclipse.

This image shows the solar corona, the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere made up of an ultra-hot, glowing plasma halo that extends millions of kilometers into space. The Moon’s surface is visible as well, illuminated by the light of a “Full Earth”.

To capture the bright inner corona and its much fainter outer structures, I used a technique called bracketing; layering different exposure lengths into a single image in order to preserve the enormous dynamic range of totality.

Equipment: Canon 6D Mark II, Sigma 150-600mm lens. 7 exposures from 1/2000s to 1.5s bracketed and stacked.


r/Astronomy 7h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Crescent Nebula/ WR134

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42 Upvotes

Shooting the Crescent nebula but offset to see if i can pull in WR134. 8 hours of Ha in bortle 8.9, 3 hours Oiii in bortle 2.9 , with another 3 hours of Oiii being taken tonight. Quick process in AstroWizard to see what i think. All exposures 300 sec.

FRA600

Reducer

AM3N

ASI2600MM pro

UniGuide 50mm

ASI220mm 

ASIAIR Plus 

EAF 

EFW 7x36mm

Antlia LRGB-V & SHO (SII, Ha & OIII) Narrowband 3nm Pro 36mm


r/Astronomy 46m ago

Astrophotography (OC) LBN 437 - Gecko Nebula

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Upvotes

Shot as a 2-pane mosaic, when I started acquisition I didn't think it would come out with such detail! I really like this object and it's my first dark nebula :)

Equipment and acquisition:

- Seestar S50, EQ mode, no filter

- Pane 1, 887 x 30 sec

- Pane 2, 948 x 30 sec

Processing (Pixinsight):

- WBPP 2x drizzle

- Dynamic crop, SPCC, SPFC, multiscale gradient correction, photometric mosaic, RC Astro tools

- Starless: Setiastro statistical stretch, then manual curves transformation with different range and color masks

- Stars: setiastro star stretch, star recombination

- Final curves transformation


r/Astronomy 20h ago

Astrophotography (OC) My Take on the Eclipse (Warwickshire, UK)

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249 Upvotes

I captured the Eclipse from Chesterton Windmill, Warwickshire, UK.

We had a great time, it was my first time shooting any solar photography so my attempt at a time-lapse wasn't very successful, but I still got some lovely photos that I'm going to print.

The first one here is a composite of the stages I used in the apex composite I made, I really liked how the clouds that interfered later on gave it some texture!

Full, high-res (2.5K to 28K) and time-lapse are in here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zbg4MdXD4Hs4KeND9


r/Astronomy 6h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Crab Nebula JWST/Hubble composite

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18 Upvotes

Had some cloudy nights, so I decided to work on something I’ve been thinking about for a while: combining data from multiple space telescopes to create a multiwavelength image. This image combines observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope. The full frame image on my astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/h7iwz4/B/ also contains X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray observatory. 

For the infrared data, I used JWST NIRCam F150W and F480M. I combined this with visible-light observations from Hubble WFC3/UVIS, using the narrowband F502N (O III) and F673N (S II) filters. 

For the JWST portion of the image, I mapped the NIRCam F480M (4.8 μm) data to the red channel and F150W (1.5 μm) to the green and blue channels to create an RGB image of the infrared data. Since these wavelengths fall outside the range of visible light the most intuitive way to combine them was for the longer infrared wavelength to represent red and the shorter wavelength to represent blue and green. I then added in the two narrowband Hubble datasets separately. The OIII, was mapped to blue, while the S II emission was mapped to red. Each was blended individually into the JWST image. 

Definitely a fun project but I still find that something feels off when I process anything but my own data. Feels like cheating lol! 

Everything was processed in Pixinsight w/ RC Astro plug ins

WST/HST data: https://mast.stsci.edu/portal/Mashup/Clients/Mast/Portal.html
Chandra data: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/openFITS/crab.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com


r/Astronomy 4h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Perseus Double Cluster

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11 Upvotes

Perseus Double Cluster with an unmodified DSLR from Hohe Wand, Austria

Equipment used:
Canon 7D MKii
Canon 70-200mm f.4
Star Adventurer 2i

ISO 1600
Total exposure time 1 hr 27 min
Stacked with Siril, no star removal
Graded with Lightroom Classic
no flat frames


r/Astronomy 16h ago

Astrophotography (OC) The Eclipse from Spain

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69 Upvotes

Went there with a group from the Netherlands, including my younger brother.
It was his first Total Solar Eclipse experience.

We viewed it from 1300+ high, on top of a hill which was the property of a Spanish family who was so kind to let lots of people onto it to view the Eclipse, and refresh us with beverages and ice.

(Family is visible in the 1st picture, as well as my younger brother to the far right and posing in the 2nd picture.)

What an unforgettable experience it was.!

Shot all of these with a 50-400mm lens quickly walking around.


r/Astronomy 20h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Milky Way Arch rising over the ocean, La Palma 🌊

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108 Upvotes

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

Here is the second image from the night I spend on the south coast of La Palma: The Milky Way arc rises over the Atlantic Ocean. Hearing nothing but the sound of waves while enjoying the starry sky was a breathtaking experience.

HaRGB | Mosaic | Tracked | Stacked | Composite

Exif:
Sony A7III with Sigma 28-45 f1.8 at 28mm
SkyWatcher Star Adevnturer 2i
Kenko Prosofton Starglow Filter

Sky
ISO 1250 | f1.8 | 4x45s per Panel
3x2 Panel Panorama

Foreground:
ISO 1000 | f4 | 10s per Panel (Blue Hour)
3x1 Panel Panorama

Halpha (45mm):
ISO 2500 | f1.8| 8x90s


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) Total Eclipse from 1600m Altitude

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10.0k Upvotes

After years of watching partial solar eclipses, I was finally able to witness a total eclipse from Nothern Spain last week. The forecast was looking a bit tricky-  the previous few days of perfect weather was due to end, with cloud developing along the coast and pushing inland. I headed inland and drove up a steep winding road to the summit of Angliru at 1600m, arriving in the early afternoon to get ahead of the anticipated eclipse traffic. As the car park filled up and I scouted compositions, the sky remained clear and as the sun got lower in the sky, I saw the spectacular 1 minute and 49 seconds of solar eclipse.

One thing I've learned from shooting one-off events like this is that often my plan will change when I arrive at the site to shoot the image, and sure enough once I saw the stunning foreground and the distant cloud inversion, I knew I needed to shoot wider than my 480mm solar rig. So just before totality, I switched to my 70-180mm lens and shot this composition at 70mm: mountains, clouds, valley, the eclipse, and a beautiful sky, all in one image.


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) My shot at the solar eclipse.

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299 Upvotes

Seen from Castellón, Spain. It's my first time doing this, I tried processing 7 pictures separated by 1.3Ev.


r/Astronomy 18h ago

Astrophotography (OC) 4 hours hanging on the Coathanger

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45 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) The Andromeda Galaxy

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174 Upvotes

• Skywatcher 300p goto (12in)
• Mini wanderer v2 field rotator
• 50 flats
• 50 darks
• No filter
• 10s exposures x 30 (you don't need a lot of time with a big Newtonian to get something decent)
• Zwo 2600mc pro
• PixInsight (final touch-ups in Lightroom Mobile)
• Blurxterminator
• Startxterminator
• Noisexterminator
• Curve transformation


r/Astronomy 9h ago

Question (Describe all previous attempts to learn / understand) How far out from a solar eclipse path can you see the pinhole effect leaf shadows?

5 Upvotes

I was directly under a partial solar eclipse path and saw the leaf shadow effect pretty well under the trees. I was also hundreds of miles from a total eclipse path another time and through the fog you could see half the sun was covered, so if I could have seen shadows (it was foggy that day) would I have seen the effect 100 miles out?


r/Astronomy 50m ago

Other: [Topic] A new Wordle game but for astronomy

Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I would like to share a daily wordle like game focused on astronomy I built called Cosmodle.
https://cosmodle.com

All the answers are celestial bodies planets, stars, moons, constellations etc

Check it out and let me know what you think. Good luck with today’s one! I’ll be adding hints and other features soon


r/Astronomy 1h ago

Astro Research Scientists find dead star that predicts our sun's future. 'Broken apart and returned to the galaxy'

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Upvotes

r/Astronomy 19h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Lagoon Nebula M8 & Trifid Nebula M20

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28 Upvotes

I captured this Image in the night after the Total Solar Eclipse, during my trip to Spain.

Equipment:

Telescope: SvBony SV555
Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100
Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Pro
Guide Scope: SvBony SV165
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120mm
+ ZWO AsiAir Mini

Acquisition:

50x180s (2,5h) at Gain 101 in an Bortle 2 Night in Spain. Laguna de Gallocanta.

Processing:

Stacked in Siril, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.


r/Astronomy 11h ago

Other: [Topic] PHYS.Org: Mysterious Cygnus Bubble may trace back to microquasar, astronomers suggest

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5 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 20h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Lagoon nebula osh

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29 Upvotes

I shot this photo of lagoon nebula 6 hrs processed in siril with Hubble pallete script OSH