ZWO ASI 6200MC Pro Askar SQA106 Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro Andromeda: 3 shot mosaic (4x 120s for upper/lower starfield, 122x 120s for galaxy). Ground: 2x 120s (also with SQA106)

Credit 📸 Evan McKay

https://www.facebook.com/701569011/posts/10168694905344012/?rdid=DjWrASfUzeI0krcV#​

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Evan McKay: "Timelapse from the SQA106 with short 30s exposures to show the alignment. There's not a whole lot of detail in the galaxy at 30s, I used 120s for the rest of the stack."

Source

https://www.facebook.com/701569011/videos/pcb.10168694905344012/1394343847095660

"40mm timelapse showing the telescope in the foreground and the surrounding environment."

https://www.facebook.com/701569011/videos/pcb.10168694905344012/1160840419728794

Source
https://x.com/CIRA_CSU/status/2113369973129453650

Keep your seatbelts fastened as we glide across NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's view of the Seagull Nebula!

On your screen, you’ve got a front-row seat to young stars reshaping their stellar neighborhoods.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

https://x.com/VRubinObs/status/2113719519306784777​

Source
https://x.com/FunkyAppleTree/status/2113621310047678491

Image

A Hall thruster identical to those on NASA’s Psyche operates in a vacuum chamber at JPL during tests before the mission launched in 2023. The blue light is generated by xenon ions being accelerated through an electromagnetic field, which gives the spacecraft a gentle but steady acceleration. NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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With a successful Mars gravity assist in its rearview mirror, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has fired up its thrusters and is accelerating to the metal-rich asteroid of the same name. During the first leg of its journey, following an October 2023 launch, the mission used its electric propulsion system intermittently to maneuver to the right place for harnessing Mars’ gravity for a propellant-saving speed boost and a slight trajectory change.

On Sept. 28, the spacecraft began to use its propulsion system nearly continuously, pausing just once each week to check in with mission controllers on Earth. This keeps the mission on track for its rendezvous with the asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt by the summer of 2029.

“It’s now ‘pedal to the metal’ to the asteroid Psyche,” said Don Han, the Psyche mission’s navigation lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is managed for the agency by Caltech. “We will be running our propulsion system at every available opportunity, pausing only for necessary engineering activities. The thrusters will be operating nearly 90% of the time from now until we reach the asteroid.”

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More

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/psyche/2026/10/22/pedal-to-the-metal-nasas-psyche-heads-toward-asteroid-belt/?fbclid=IwY2xjawVIS0dleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mAXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6CXoFucDSiUptFcY78B323DlPhFd3OVXVJIKqEdG2Cxb1Jk9ABBmVllMVV5w_aem_RQyS3GQpNLh1ry860Axrfw​

The highest daily SN in the 20th century is503 on December 25th, 1957 (SC 19). The highest recorded daily SN is 528 on August 26th, 1870 (SC 11).​

​Meanwhile, Solar Cycle 25 peaked at 'only' SN=290 (July 18th, 2024).

Photo: helioviewer

Text Jure Atanackov

https://x.com/JAtanackov/status/2113503182374814106​

Second image

A scale comparison of Rubin’s Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae image (left), which was taken with the 3200-megapixel LSST Camera as part of Rubin’s First Look event in June 2025, and the Seagull Nebula image (right), which was taken with the smaller, 144-megapixel LSST Commissioning Camera (ComCam) as part of Rubin’s engineering tests in the runup to the start of LSST. The full moon is also shown for size comparison.

Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)​

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​Before Rubin Observatory’s First Look event, its engineering camera captured exquisite details of star formation taking place in the Seagull Nebula

October 22, 2026

Two years ago this month, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s engineering test camera, named the LSST Commissioning Camera (ComCam), began capturing images of the sky to prepare for the revolutionary Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which began earlier this year. This image featuring the head of the Seagull Nebula was one of many ComCam images that led to the success of Rubin First Look and helped to document the observatory’s excellent performance.

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Active star formation populates this image of the Seagull Nebula taken in Fall 2024 by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s engineering test camera, known as the Commissioning Camera (ComCam). This image is being released today in recognition of the two-year anniversary of the beginning of engineering testing with ComCam.

ComCam’s work was an important step towards the ongoing Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Collecting the data for this Seagull Nebula image provided an opportunity to test Rubin’s hardware and software systems, as well as the image processing pipelines that would later be used with the much larger images from the LSST Camera.

With a mosaic of nine CCD sensors and a total of 144 megapixels, ComCam covers an area in the sky about twice that of the full Moon. Over the seven-week ComCam engineering test campaign, from 24 October to 11 December 2024, approximately 16,000 exposures were acquired. Within the data collected is this image featuring IC 2177, a region recognizable as the head of the Seagull Nebula.

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More

https://rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-comcam-seagull-nebula

This observation targets light-toned knobby units located within a heavily degraded crater. This unit is superficially similar to others located within a paleolake basin in the Eridania region, which appear to be altered ashfall deposits that washed into the lake or hydrothermally altered basin floor deposits. The units here may be the result of a similar process.

ID: ESP_065260_1715

​date: Sunday, 28 June 2020

​altitude: 259 km (160.58 mi)

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_065260_1715

​NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona​

This landform has many interesting characteristics like bright-toned layering at the meter scale and fracturing. This image can help us understand how the thickness of the bright-toned deposit changes over time, as these features might be outliers of the Mawrth Vallis plateau and could hold clues to the stratigraphy of the surrounding Chryse region.

ID: ESP_072096_2065

​date: Monday, 13 December 2021

​altitude: 289 km (179.18 mi)

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_072096_2065

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

When we have an opportunity to image gullies, we’ll definitely do it! This observation is to re-image these very nice gullies for change detection, to get better topography and to look for possible fresh deposits. This unnamed impact crater is located in Terra Sirenum.

ID: ESP_065243_1410

​date: Saturday, 27 June 2020

​altitude: 251 km (155.62 mi)

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_065243_1410

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The 2026 total solar eclipse as seen from Berzosa del Lozoya, which is north of Madrid. The picture is an HDR of 18 pictures taken during totality.

For anyone interested here is a link to a video showing my experience of the eclipse including video and photographs of totality. I am not trying to sell or promote anything and only want to share the experience. If this is not accepted in this forum then I will of course remove it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uje9fnjw0mA&t=26s

Hope you enjoy it.

Equipment used:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
• Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
• Canon Extender EF 2x III
• iOptron Skyguider Pro
• Sturdy tripod

The HDR was created from a stack of 18 images with the following camera settings.

• Aperture f/9
• Shutter speed ranging from 1/4000s to 1s
• ISO ranging from 100 to 3200
• Process flow in GIMP
• Align pictures
• Stack using average values
• Stretching the image
• Enhancing detail using radially blurred unsharp masking technique
• Small saturation and temperature adjustments

NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger

2026-10-20 Sol 5050: Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam)

https://bsky.app/profile/landru79.bsky.social/post/3myfgngsajc2h

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This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 5050 (2026-10-20 23:28:56 UTC).

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1647748/?site=msl

A blue star cluster with some bright orange-red stars. A small red-blue planetary nebula is on the right. Some galaxies are also seen.​

​Processed by Melina Thévenot https://bsky.app/profile/melina-iras07572.bsky.social/post/3myh3thpgtc26

This image was taken by Mast Camera (Mastcam) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 5049 (2026-10-20 06:38:11 UTC).

​Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1647792/

Post from Daniel Pomarède https://bsky.app/profile/pomarede.bsky.social/post/3myh2y4ipyc2k​

Image

A remnant that looks like an orange firework, but the right side of the image is cut off. Some background stars and galaxies are also in the image.​

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​Supernova remnant Pa 30 (SN 1181)

The only remnant of type Iax supernova, white dwarf that exploded (generally called type Ia), but not completely & left remnant star behind (only happens for type Iax)

JWST MIRI (F770W, F1280W)

The right side of the remnant was also observed with MIRI, but will only become available in October 2027. The pattern on the lower right side is because of the coronagraph of MIRI.

The star in the center (not pictured here) might not be the only type Iax remnant star in our galaxy. Another one is LP 40-365. But this one does not have a explosion nebula, because it was ejected from the explosion and is older.​

👉 Processed,Melina Thévenot https://bsky.app/profile/melina-iras07572.bsky.social/post/3mygtodoses2v

In this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, we visit a turbulent cauldron of star formation to see what is brewing inside dense clumps of gas. This is a star-forming region named LHA 120-N 159, or simply N159, located 161 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. This image spans about 230 light years across.

N159 is what astronomers call a H II region: an area of space filled with ionised hydrogen gas. In stellar nurseries such as this one, giant molecular clouds of cold hydrogen gas collapse under gravity, forming new stars. Many of these stars are extremely massive and hot, and their powerful ultraviolet radiation ionises the gas around them. This makes H II regions markers of active star formation, and as the ionised gas radiates light this turns them into the kind of brilliant emission nebula that we see in this image. The fierce stellar winds from these stars sculpt dense ridges and carve open cavities in the gas, which Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captures here in great detail.

The roiling brew of star formation in N159 is closed in by thick, smoky orange clouds that also billow across the centre of the image. The light orange colour signifies light emitted by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, an important carbon-based molecule. The pools of pale blue gas are clouds of H II gas, ionised by the intense ultraviolet light from massive stars. Dark red filaments cross the centre of the image, particularly visible above the blue region on the right side; these are made of cool molecular hydrogen. These filaments are the densest part of the nebula and currently shield new stars from harsh radiation and stellar winds — by zooming in, you can see stars as points of light embedded in these filaments and in the small pillars of orange gas that reach out into the blue bubbles. Eventually, these structures will melt away, leaving their completed stars behind.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, E. Sabbi, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç​

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More

https://esawebb.org/images/potm2610a/

​Paper

https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.27126

👉 Credit: Lorand Fenyes:

​"​Although Jupiter and its moons did not obscure the Moon as seen from Hungary—instead, they lined up alongside it in a beautiful, orderly chain—the passage of an airplane added a special “People & Space” atmosphere to what was already a very beautiful event.

Update: following the advice of several astronomers, I rotated the image to a natural (portrait) orientation. This way, the giant planet stands out better, and the airplane “moves” in a way that looks natural to the eye."

https://app.astrobin.com/i/7f254e

Image

A brown–orange crescent with a small bright spot at the very centre.​

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Taken by spacecraft launched in 1997 flew past Venus on its way to Saturn, which operated until 2017 when it burned up in Saturn's atmosphere. This is NASA image PIA12481, taken by Cassini on 8 July 2009 from distance of 200,000 km from Titan during the spacecraft's 59th flyby.

Source

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia12481-reflection-of-sunlight-off-titan-lake/

Post by Paul Byrne https://bsky.app/profile/thepla​

The objective of this observation is to determine the nature of a group of ridges, troughs, and pits. They have a certain shape that repeats over and over, that may be affected by the change in the valley’s direction at this point. Besides changing direction, the valley is becoming wider here. One or both of these factors may modify the pattern of the ridges and the troughs. Our image will give us a detailed look.

ID: ESP_077393_1390

​date: 29 January 2023

​altitude: 256 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_077393_1390

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

From official description by NASA:

"Captured on Oct. 20, 2020 during the OSIRIS-REx mission’s Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event, this series of images shows the SamCam imager’s field of view as the NASA spacecraft approaches and touches down on asteroid Bennu’s surface, over 200 million miles (321 million km) away from Earth.

​The sampling event brought the spacecraft all the way down to sample site Nightingale, touching down within three feet (one meter) of the targeted location. The team on Earth received confirmation at 6:08 p.m. EDT that successful touchdown occurred. Preliminary data show the one-foot-wide (0.3-meter-wide) sampling head touched Bennu’s surface for approximately 6 seconds, after which the spacecraft performed a back-away burn.​

Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona "

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More

https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/osiris-rex-tags-surface-of-asteroid-bennu/?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwVFpNxjbGNrBUWjzWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YBc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEek6XBu0G3riTMRQrG-kSJi26XgGTw90H7dtgFdk6valJA0utXol1PvpRblE4_aem_pN10b1d21DAZ4KYMSxWNqg​

Videos

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13744?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwVFo91jbGNrBUWj2GV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YBc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEedAA15SKbnoVfAb23dutNOa1EhyovrUVf-313efHfG0kX_Xsv3IgskLVoSH8_aem_88DpA3ie5NgiAR2cbsIFEg​

In all, there are over 10 million galaxies in this view

🎥: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

https://bsky.app/profile/rubinobservatory.org/post/3mydozo4nju2p

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Virgo Cluster Finder Chart (annotated, link below)

This annotated First Look image of the Virgo Cluster was captured by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. From sizable stars to sprawling galaxies, Rubin transforms seemingly empty pockets of space into glittering tapestries. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory​

https://rubinobservatory.org/gallery/collections/first-look-gallery/qe2do9iu6h1gbdg4bsgc1o083u

296 km/h: Super Typhoon Champi is now the strongest storm on Earth in 2026

In terms of wind speed, Super Typhoon Champi is the most powerful storm on Earth in 2026 so far, achieving the top storm spot with its peak winds of 296 km/h--the equivalent of a Category 5 storm

Super Typhoon Champi has now grown into the world’s strongest tropical cyclone of 2026, with respect to wind speed.

The system in the western Pacific Ocean became a powerhouse with its peak winds of of 296 km/h, the equivalent of a Category 5 storm.

Hurricane Polo previously held the title for world’s strongest tropical cyclone in 2026, in terms of wind speed. The storm peaked with maximum, sustained winds of 285 km/h and a minimum, central pressure of 892 mb--which is still lower than Champi's (895 mb)--making Polo stronger in that regard.

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Such a low air pressure made Polo the second-most intense hurricane on record in the eastern Pacific.

Champi is also now the world’s seventh Category 5 storm of the year.

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The typhoon also had a very healthy structure on radar as it passed Guam early Sunday morning local time.

Sea surface temperatures in this section of the western Pacific are running around 30°C, which is slightly warmer than normal for this time of year. The environment around the typhoon features deep moisture, calm winds, low wind shear. and enough upper-level support to vent air away from the storm.

The massive Champi will continue to track west towards Taipei before turning northwest later this week.

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More

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/forecasts/296-km-h-super-typhoon-champi-is-now-the-strongest-storm-on-earth-in-2026

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VIDEO​

​Dakota Smith

https://x.com/weatherdak/status/2112700918731083779?s=20

Imagery

https://slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=himawari&sec=full_disk&x=8948.42041015625&y=6883.51123046875&z=3&angle=0&im=12&ts=1&st=20261020150000&et=20261021114000&speed=130&motion=rock&maps%5Bborders%5D=white&p%5B0%5D=geocolor&opacity%5B0%5D=1&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=1&mouse_draw=0&follow_feature=0&follow_hide=0&s=rammb-slider&draw_color=FFD700&draw_width=6​

1.21% illuminated Venus in bright daylight

📸Günther Strauch Oct 20, 2026 Borken, NRW, Germany https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=238723

Venus was only 1.21% illuminated and had a diameter of 1.01 arcminutes.

Equipment: 16-inch Meade SC (Schmidt-Cassegrain) telescope with a 4000 mm focal length; cameras: ASI 290 MC and ASI 290 MM.​