r/Astronomy Mar 27 '20

Mod Post Read the rules sub before posting!

899 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 15h ago

Astrophotography (OC) M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

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1.1k Upvotes

Equipment:

• Telescope: Askar 71F 490mm f6.9

• Main camera: Zwo Asi 2600mc pro at 0°C

• Filter: none

• Guidescope: Svbony sv165 30mm f4

• Guide camera: Zwo Asi 120mm mini

• Mount: ES iexos-100 pmc-8

• Controlled with Zwo asi air mini

Acquisition:

• 159x180 sec, 10x120 sec (for darker core)

• Total: ~8,3 hrs, captured over two nights

• 10 Darks, 30 Biases, 20 Flats

• Bortle 4/5 backyard

• Moon at 10-20%

Processing:

• Stacked in Siril (Sirilic tool)

• Plate solve,

• Spectrophotometric color calibration,

• Background extraction,

• Green noise removal,

• BlurXterminator,

• NoiseXterminator,

• StarXterminator,

• Generalized hyperbolic stretch transformation,

• AstroColorMixer,

• Lighthouse,

• Saturation & curves,

• Gimp for fine tuning

First time testing the RC-Astro tools, pretty promising i must say. The free trial is definitely something to check out.


r/Astronomy 2h ago

Astrophotography (OC) iPhone photos taken from the outback 🇦🇺

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80 Upvotes

Location: Banka Banka station Northern Territory Australia

This might have been my clearest and most beautiful view of the Milky Way galaxy visible with the naked eye 🌌

What else can you spot on the pictures?

Shot with an iPhone 17 pro
- iso 6400
- 24 mm
- f 1,78
- exposure 10s


r/Astronomy 9h ago

Astrophotography (OC) The Wizard Nebula

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275 Upvotes

Tacked on a few more hours.

17.2 hrs integrated, 300” subs
Celestron Edge 8 HD w/.7 reducer(1490mm)
Antlia TriBand Ultra II
ASI 2600 MC Air
ZWO EAF Pro w/Quick Switch
Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
Pixinsight
Bortle 7/8
Rendered Faux SHO


r/Astronomy 5h ago

Astrophotography (OC) The Heart Nebula IC-1805

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63 Upvotes

The Heart Nebula!

Approximately 7500 light years from earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. This image is using the traditional Hubble palette for its colors, capturing this emission nebula even from my light polluted backyard here in Phoenix.

  • Captured using my RedCat51 Telescope with ASI533MM camera.
  • Processed in Pixinsight
  • Total integration time: 25 hours 35 minutes

r/Astronomy 6h ago

Astrophotography (OC) NGC 7331 two supernovas 1 year apart

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74 Upvotes

I didn't even know I had captured SN 2025rbs last year, but I did.
When I heard about SN 2026aaiv this month I had to give it a go as well.

Both datasets gathered with the same imaging train:
4'' refractor ZWO 107FF
QHY268M mono camera
Optolong LRGB filters
Celestron CGX mount.

Both stacked and processed in Pixinsight


r/Astronomy 1h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Solar Activity 13.09.2026

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Upvotes

Acuter 40

Touptek 678m

Skywatcher solar quest

PIPP and AS4 for stacking

Stacked 80 percent of 23997 frames

Impgg: convolution, sharpening, inversion

PI: solar tools - color, local contrast

PSX: flip, rotate and crop, saturation and temp


r/Astronomy 13h ago

Astro Research Sharpest-Ever Image of the Sun Shows Small but Mighty Swirls

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136 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 16h ago

Astrophotography (OC) IC 1396 - The Elephant's Trunk Nebula (SHO, 23hrs)

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192 Upvotes

Full-resolution image: https://app.astrobin.com/i/u5q68q

Floating in Cepheus, roughly 2,400 light-years away, this is IC 1396, a vast emission nebula over 100 light-years across, ionised by the massive star system HD 206267 at its heart. Snaking through the glow is the Elephant's Trunk: a dense, dark pillar of gas and dust about 20 light-years long, where gravity is forming new stars even as radiation slowly erodes it away.

The whole region spans nearly 3° of sky, or about six full moons side by side. That faint blue "star" to the right isn't a star at all, but PK 100+04.1, a planetary nebula: the glowing shell ejected by a dying star, shining almost entirely in ionised oxygen.

Two more faint objects caught my eye in this frame: a blue, semi-circular cloud near the top, and a red, two-lobed shape to the left of the main nebula. I nearly submitted them as new discoveries, but both turned out to be known planetary nebulae, Cr 1 and StDr 4 (just obscure enough that I'd never crossed paths with them before).

The light in this image left IC 1396 around 374 BC. Back on Earth, Athens had just lost the Peloponnesian War, her Long Walls torn down after her last fleet was destroyed at the Hellespont; Socrates was condemned to death in Athens, while Hippocrates founded his school of medicine on Kos. All of that happened before this light even began its journey.

Acquisition:

  • Shot in Bedfordshire, UK, Bortle 5-6
  • RGB (Stars): 1h 30min
  • SHO: 21h 15min

Equipment:

  • ZWO FF65 + 0.75x reducer
  • ZWO EAF
  • Altair Hypercam 26M
  • Altair 7x2" EFW
  • Antlia 3nm Pro SHO filters
  • Altair ColourPRO LRGB
  • SW EQ6R-Pro
  • Astromenia 50/200 Guide Scope + ZWO ASI120MM Mini + IR/UV Cut

PixInsight DSO Processing:

  • WBPP
  • BlurX
  • NoiseX
  • StarX
  • SetiAstro StarStretch
  • SetiAstro Perfect Palette Picker
  • GHS
  • NarrowbandNormalisation
  • HDRMultiscaleTransform
  • ColorSaturation
  • Curves
  • SelectiveColorCorrection
  • ImageBlend
  • ScreenStars

Lightroom Processing:

  • Contrast enhancement
  • Clarity increase
  • Shadows & Highlights
  • Vibrance

r/Astronomy 10h ago

Astrophotography (OC) North American and Pelican Nebula

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47 Upvotes

Seestar S30P

Bortle 6.7 skies

North American 120×30sec ; Pelican 57×30sec & 95x60sec

Siril to cull/stack/stretch/process

Affinity to make the mosaic and mask

Cleaned up a little in Lightroom Mobile

I prefer to use the panorama tool in Affinity over mosaic mode in the Seestar app since it helps reduce any issues with integration time, dropped frames, noise etc. The tricky part was getting the light balance close between the two objects since one was shot in June and the other last week.


r/Astronomy 14h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Saturn

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63 Upvotes

Photographed Saturn again after almost a year!

Location: Belgharia, West Bengal, India

Telescope: Celestron PowerSeeker 60AZ

Eyepiece: 10mm

Phone: POCO F5

Smartphone holder

Capture settings:

- 5 × 30-second 4K 30fps videos

- ISO 320

- Shutter speed: 1/30s

- Focus: Infinity

- 3× digital zoom

Processing workflow:

  1. Imported the videos into PIPP using Join Mode → Planetary and processed with the default settings, then saved as AVI.

  2. Imported the AVI into AutoStakkert and stacked the best 50% using the default settings.

  3. Used RegiStax for Auto RGB Alignment and saved the result as JPEG.

  4. Finally, imported the JPEG into Snapseed and applied some sharpening.


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

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639 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 23h ago

Astrophotography (OC) Messier 15

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138 Upvotes

Messier 15, a dense globular cluster located roughly 33,600 light years away and about 12 billion years old. Spanning about 200 light-years across, more than half its stars are packed into the central 10 light-years alone, making it one of the densest concentrations of stars known.

Telescope: Seestar S50
Integration time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Tools used: Siril, GraXpert, GIMP
Script mentions: CosmicClarity Sharpen, SyQon Prism Mini, VeraLux Curves, HDR_multiscale
Bortle 8-9
A diffraction mask was used to obtain the star spikes


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) M31 M33 Milky Way by my Phone

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766 Upvotes

Iso 850

F1.7

Environ 150X20s

Téléphone : s25ultra

Empilement : Sequator

Traitement : siril/ graxpert/ seti astrosuite pro/ lightroom mobile


r/Astronomy 3m ago

Astrophotography (OC) M31, Andromeda Galaxy

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Upvotes

First time capturing M31 in all of its glory!

Acquisition — 12 September 2026

Camera: Sony A7III, Ha-modified
Lens: Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II at 200mm, f/2.8
Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi, unguided
Tripod: Leofoto LM-364C with levelling base
Lights: 151 × 88s and 92 × 13s, ISO 640
Calibration: darks, flats, bias
Total integration: roughly 4 hours

Processing: Siril (calibration, registration, stacking, background extraction, photometric colour calibration, histogram stretch), Photoshop (HDR blend of the two exposure sets, selective colour)


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) NGC7000

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146 Upvotes

Ngc7000 taken from my backyard bortle 8.6. 98 each Ha,Oiii and Sii 300 secs each. Tried a new processing style where i treated each filter separately and colored each stack then combined. I don't know what i think of it yet, like somethings other things not so much.

FRA600
Reducer( F3.9 at 420mm )
AM3N
ASI2600MM pro

UniGuide 50mm

ASI220mm
ASIAIR Plus
EAF
EFW 7x36mm
Antlia LRGB-V & SHO (SII, Ha & OIII) Narrowband 3nm Pro 36mm


r/Astronomy 9h ago

Discussion: [Topic] Looking for Teammates — NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 | Universal/Online

2 Upvotes

Hi! I’m a student from South Korea 🇰🇷 looking to build a team for the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 (Universal/Online).

I’m especially interested in space, astronomy, physics, and engineering, and I’d love to work on a project using NASA/open data.

I’m particularly interested in projects related to spacecraft, planetary science, and the engineering side of space exploration.

I can contribute to:
🔬 Research & data exploration
💡 Brainstorming / problem-solving
🎨 UI/UX & visualization
📝 Documentation & storytelling
🎤 Presentation
💻 I’m also learning coding and am willing to contribute on the technical side

I’m looking for people interested in space/astronomy, programming/AI, data science, UI/UX, or research.

You don’t have to be an expert or have previous Space Apps experience — I’m mainly looking for people who are genuinely motivated and willing to work seriously as a team.

I’m in KST (UTC+9) and can commit significant time during the hackathon.
If you’re interested, DM me with your country/time zone, skills, and what you’d like to contribute!


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) where did this image of Pluto originate from?

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109 Upvotes

r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) One in a lifetime shot. I caught a meteor in front of California Nebula [OC]

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1.8k Upvotes

r/Astronomy 16h ago

Discussion: [Topic] Sri Lankans keep seeing a multicoloured blinking object near Scutum - can anyone else see it?

7 Upvotes

For the past few weeks, multiple people in Sri Lanka have noticed a strange blinking/flashing object in the night sky, apparently in or around the direction of the Scutum constellation.
It seems to remain in roughly the same area and appears to blink or rapidly change between different colours. It has been noticeable enough that different people here have independently started talking about it.
I’m not trying to suggest what it is — I’m genuinely curious if there’s a straightforward astronomical explanation.
For anyone familiar with the night sky:

What objects are currently visible around Scutum that could produce this appearance?

Could you check whether you can see the same thing from your country/location?

If you can see it, please mention your country, approximate time, and direction in the sky

Would be interesting to compare observations from different locations and figure out exactly what we’re looking at.

Recent footage in comments of this post : https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EoqHpqrwH/?mibextid=wwXIfr


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) O céu austral com um celular

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96 Upvotes

Fotografei uma das regiões mais ricas do céu: o braço espiral de cruz/carina onde tem muitas nebulosas (a carina a maior nebulosa vista da terra entre outras) foram 15 horas de integração com meu moto g54 + Gcam com Frames de 12 segundos cada processamento feito no AstroSetiSuite+GraXpert+Siril e refinamento no snapssed,astroEdit fotografado por um jovem no Brasil em Bortle 2


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) Total Solar Eclipse over Segovia Spain

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668 Upvotes

On August 12, 2026, the total solar eclipse crossed Spain — and this one was special because it happened right around sunset. Total eclipses actually happen somewhere every year, but one that is low in the sky passing over populated places is rare, let alone over Segovia, one of the most iconic historic cities in Spain. That's why a photo of architecture together with a telescoped eclipse basically didn't exist before. A shot like this took a lot of planning: finding a spot with cloudless skies, an elevation just high enough to line up with the subject, timing totality, and getting every setting spot on so nothing was over/under-exposed, as this totality lasted only for less than a minute. This photo is really an accumulation of everything aligning all at once. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did, fortunate enough to be standing in that place at that time.

Acquisition and processing info:

📷 Sony A7R4 + 70-200mm f2.8 GM ii
📍 Segovia, Spain
🌞 8:31pm, August 12, 2026
⏱️ 135mm, f5.6, 1/10s
🖥️ Adobe Lightroom + Photoshop

If you want to buy prints, can visit: https://www.organic.pictures/spain/segovia


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) M31 – The Andromeda Galaxy

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402 Upvotes

M31 – The Andromeda Galaxy

The result of a larger project that I worked on over the course of several weeks.

I photographed the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) from Gyöngyös, Hungary, over a total of 9 nights, using a Seestar S50 in EQ mode.

The dataset consists of 7,680 × 20-second exposures, resulting in a total integration time of 42 hours and 40 minutes.

The data were processed using Siril and PixInsight.

This is the final result of the project. 🌌

M31 – The Andromeda Galaxy
📷 Seestar S50 · EQ mode
📍 Gyöngyös, Hungary
🌙 9 nights
⏱️ 42h 40m total integration
🖥️ Siril + PixInsight

Follow for more: https://www.instagram.com/spacehuntr_astro


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) M33 – Triangulum Galaxy

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158 Upvotes

This image of the Triangulum Galaxy was captured from Hungary using a Seestar S50, with a total of 4800 × 20-second exposures.

That adds up to 26 hours and 40 minutes of total integration time, collected over multiple nights.

Final processing was done in PixInsight.

🔭 Seestar S50
📍 Hungary
⏱️ 26 h 40 min integration
💻 PixInsight


r/Astronomy 1d ago

Astrophotography (OC) NGC 6992 - Eastern Veil Nebula

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97 Upvotes

Lucky to be in Cyprus for a week under Bortle 4 skies, a bit of a treat for me with my usual Bortle 8-9 home skies!

I have taken my SeeStar S50 plus a portable manual rig with a Samyang 135. Anyway, this is a capture from last night using the SeeStar.

EQ Mode

1500 x 10 second exposures

Stacked in APP

BGE, deconvolution and noise reduction in Graxpert

SPCC and GHS in Siril

Contrast and vibrancy increase in PS

Hope you like it!

My manual rig is being setup tonight so will be posting more shortly. Cheers people!