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/Captainess_Unicorn • 7h ago
I am sharing this photo on behalf of my dad who loves to do astrophotography. He doesn’t have Reddit but gave me permission to share so other people can see his work! He said it was taken through an Explore scientific ED80 triplet refractor.
r/Astronomy • u/Babydrone • 18h ago
NGC 7822 is a large emission nebula in the constellation of Cepheus that has some resemblance to a question mark. This image however does not show the circular dot part of it, which is located far below this.
This is 3 hours of frames (386 x 30sec for 3 hours and 13 minutes total integration) from a bortle 6 location, shot on a Seestar S30 Pro.
I'm very pleased with how it came out! It looks a little like a face from this angle.
r/Astronomy • u/Substantial_Put2322 • 8h ago
Acquisition details
Target: Sh2-157 (Lobster Claw Nebula), Cassiopeia
Location: Fort Mill, SC, USA (Bortle 6)
Dates: October 2026, 4 nights
Equipment
Telescope: Askar 103APO (700mm, f/6.8)
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Mount: ZWO AM3N
Filters: Antlia 3nm Ha / OIll / SIl, Antlia V-Pro R / G / B
Filter wheel: ZWO EFW
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guiding: SVBony guide scope + ZWO ASI220MM Mini Control: ZWO ASlair Plus
Integration
Ha: 45 × 500s (6.3 h)
OIII: 53 × 500s (7.4 h)
SII: 60 × 500s (8.3 h)
RGB (stars): 15 × 120s each (1.5 h)
Total: 23.4 hours
Gain 100, cooled to - 10°C
Calibration: 500s: 25, 120s: 25 darks, Ha: 50, OIll: 50, SIl:
50, R: 50, G: 50 B: 50 flats, 50 bias
Processing (PixInsight 1.9.5)
WBPP (PSF Signal Weight, Local Normalization, cosmetic correction)
GradientCorrection, BlurXTerminator
GHS stretch with highlight protection on the bright core StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator
NarrowbandNormalization (SHO palette)
Curves, masked core dimming, DarkStructureEnhance, LocalHistogramEqualization, SCNR
RGB stars: SPCC, BlurTerminator, GHS, StarTerminator, black-point clip, screen-blended back in
r/Astronomy • u/Confident_Lock7758 • 16h ago
NGC 869–884, the Double Cluster in Perseus: this image represents 11 hours of RGB integration using a Takahashi 106/530 f/5 wide-field refractor and a ZWO ASI2600 MM Pro camera. It consists of 133 exposures—comprising 39x300s (Red filter), 47x300s (Green filter), and 47x300s (Blue filter)—processed with PixInsight and Photoshop. All data and images were acquired via Telescope Live.
r/Astronomy • u/joshmcguigan_ • 1d ago
I wasn’t even planning on capturing this image, but while waiting for another composition I realised this shot would be possible and couldn’t help myself but to shoot it. This night was super calm, giving me some absolutely perfect reflections in the lake, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. There was a very small window in the night when the alignment would work, giving me about 5 minutes to create the image, ensuring the cluster would be centred above the mountain.
Matariki is a significant cluster all around the world, but particularly here in Aotearoa, its rising in mid-winter signals the beginning of the Māori New Year. It’s celebrated as a time to connect with friends and family, share kai (food) and set goals for the future.
NO AI was used in the creation of this image.
IG: @jshmcguigan
Captured on Nikon Z6a + Sigma ART 40mm F1.4
r/Astronomy • u/FLYCHAIKA1 • 17h ago
Telescope: Skywatcher dob 8 1200/200 f/6.
Mount: homemade EQ platform
Total exposure time: 1 hour 35 minutes (230x25s subs, ISO 2500 + 40 darks, 30 flats, 30 biases.)
Camera: unmodified Nikon D800
Bortle 5
07.10.2026
Around the stars, you can see not 4, as usual with Newtonians, but 8 diffraction spikes. The reason is that the EP provides a little more than an hour of tracking, and after that you need to reset it, and the field of view rotates a bit. With every hour of exposure you will be add 4 spikes to the final image)
Stacked frames in Siril, background extraction and denoise in Graxpert, photometric CC and stretch in Siril (stretch by Veralux automatic stretch script).
r/Astronomy • u/Galileos_grandson • 7h ago
r/Astronomy • u/Nova_Omar • 2h ago
The exhaust plumes of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft are seen illuminated by sunlight against the predawn sky during the launch of NASA’s SpaceX CRS-35 mission, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, as seen from Cocoa Beach, Florida. The light makes the plumes look like a jellyfish in the sky.
r/Astronomy • u/FLYCHAIKA1 • 17h ago
Telescope: Skywatcher dob 8 1200/200 f/6.
Mount: homemade EQ platform
Total exposure time: 32 minutes (146x13s subs, ISO 2500 + biases.)
Camera: unmodified Nikon D800
Bortle 5
19.09.2026
Back then I didn't shoot the planned number of frames because there were heavy dew and I had to stop a session. Some of the shoots got ruined and I was upset and forgot to do darks and flats:). Also there were some problems with tracking, that I've partly solved now. Stacked frames in Siril, background extraction and denoise in Graxpert, photometric CC and stretch in Siril (stretch by Veralux automatic stretch script).
r/Astronomy • u/olezhka_lt • 1d ago
Hello, everyone! Here’s my latest look at Orion, captured in just 102 minutes from my Bortle 4.5 backyard with the Sharpstar 13028 telescope and ToupTek 2600C astrophotography camera.
Do you notice anything different about this rendition? If you thought “white balance” that's exactly it! I went for SPCC of KV5 instead of Sb galaxy, or G2V or average spiral galaxy. This cooler white makes the Blue giants pop and add that contrast to the reddish hues of the nebula itself.
M42 is a stellar nursery, with young stars lighting up the gas around them. I love the detail in its bright centre, but this wider view gives the neighbouring objects some room too. Above M42 is the bluish Running Man Nebula. Its dust reflects light from nearby stars, while the darker gaps make up the figure that gave it its name.
Look near the bottom of the image for a much smaller blue glow: NGC 1999. Close-up images reveal a dark patch inside it shaped like a keyhole. Astronomers once thought it was a dense clump of dust blocking the light, but later observations showed it’s a cavity in the cloud. How that hole formed is still a mystery.
I've added a starless version at the end as well. Sometimes those turn out good 👀
Clear skies,
Oleg
r/Astronomy • u/Livid_Parsnip_2816 • 1h ago
Chandra observations suggest the “Treble Clef” radio structure was created by a supermassive black hole outburst and later reshaped by a collision between galaxy clusters.
r/Astronomy • u/JapKumintang1991 • 12h ago
r/Astronomy • u/Beginning_Bedroom718 • 14h ago
Today, October 14, 2026, at 20:58 (GMT+2), I spotted a bright object near Polaris in a long-exposure photograph taken from Duisburg, Germany. It appeared only briefly and then suddenly vanished. Does anyone have any idea what it might have been?
At the top, you can see a few satellites and airplanes, as well as a couple of shooting stars.
I used Slow Shutter for iOS on a iPhone 13 PRO MAX
r/Astronomy • u/gediphoto • 1d ago
r/Astronomy • u/yagza • 23h ago
Closest start to earth that’s visible in the northern hemisphere
Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130 AZ
IPHONE 16+
AstroShader 45 one second long exposures
r/Astronomy • u/ElPingu_ • 13h ago
1100 subs, 60s each, Dwarf 3, Duo-Band Filter, shot in Lugano, Switzerland. Processing through Dwarflab's Megastacking function, post processing in Apple Photos.
r/Astronomy • u/Lonely_Education790 • 1d ago
Acquisition:
189 x 180s lights (taken in mid-September)
40 darks
40 flats
60 biases
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Equipment:
Sky-Watcher 130PDS Explorer (main telescope)
Sky-Watcher HEQ5 mount
ZWO ASI585MC Pro camera
Svbony SV220 3 nm duo-band filter
Askar FMA180 Pro (as a guide scope)
ZWO ASI120MM mini (guide camera)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Processed mostly in Siril with final touches in Darktable. Denoised with GraXpert and deconvolved with BlurXterminator. I created a pseudo-Hubble palette with pixel math:
Red: Pure Hα
Green: Linear combination of 70% OIII and 30% Hα
Blue: OIII multiplied by 1.5 to bring out the blue colour.
r/Astronomy • u/Horst__Schlemmer • 1d ago
r/Astronomy • u/minndxb • 1d ago
a faint emission and reflection nebula, illuminated by the nearby star gamma cassiopeiae.
this is my personal interpretation of IC63, combining H-alpha and RGB-data to bring out its delicate structures and subtle colours.
to me, it looks like a little ghost setting off on a journey through the stars ;-)
Equipment: Vixen VC200L · ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool · NEQ6 Pro · Astronomik RGB filters · Astrodon Hα 3 nm
Captured and processed with ASIAIR, Siril and Photoshop.
r/Astronomy • u/FLYCHAIKA1 • 1d ago
Telescope: Skywatcher dob 8 1200/200 f/6.
Mount: homemade EQ platform
Total exposure time: 25 minutes (116x13s subs, ISO 2500 + flats, darks and biases.)
Camera: unmodified Nikon D800
Bortle 5, 92% Moon (but he was far away)
Back then I was testing the platform, and there were some problems with tracking, but I still used part of the footage. Stacked around 50% best frames in Siril, background extraction and denoise in Graxpert, photometric CC and stretch in Siril (stretch by Veralux automatic stretch script).
r/Astronomy • u/-GenArrow- • 2d ago
Ghost of Cassiopeia :)
Newton 200/1200,
EQ6R,
IMX 533 mono, -15°,
31 hours - Halpha,
29 hours - OIII
Bortle 4.5, Romania
Processed using Pixinsight, Seti Astro, GraXpert, Photoshop.
r/Astronomy • u/spaceglancer • 1d ago
Teamed up with u/zTrojan for some smartphone astrophotography.
r/Astronomy • u/buddha2490 • 1d ago
To be honest, I don't know what the LDN designations for these are. Every time I look them up, I find something different. These are located only a couple degrees north of the often-imaged Iris nebula and the widest field images will often show them in the same frame.
Dark nebula permeate our galaxy and are a mixture of cold gas and dust. The gas is mostly molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide, the two most common molecules in the universe. Mixed in are bits of carbon and silicates, other detritus from supernova in the past. Over time, these dark nebula can condense and start to form stars and solar systems. The carbon and silicates so common on earth today used to exist in clouds like this before gravity pulled them into planets.
It is so much fun to image dark nebula because you get to watch them slowly appear over time. When I image a galaxy or bright nebula, I can usually see what I'm imaging in the first sub, after that it is just about building SNR. Dark nebula are different because every sub is just a few stars, nothing else. After the first night, the main part of the nebula are visible, but it really takes a lot of time before I see the fainter structures. For example, the lower left corner of the field was completely empty after the first couple nights and I considered scrapping the project and reframing it. But over several night, these fain wisps just started to appear and I think they are a beautiful contrast with the main nebula.
I'm fortunate to host my telescope at Starfront Observatories in Redwood TX. They offer a Bortle 1 experience and talented staff to help me out when my telescope isn't working well. It is quite a change from imaging in my backyard in Midtown Atlanta. Dark nebula are not an option in the city, so I'm glad to take advantage of the dark skies and see the darker side of our universe.
Total integration: 41h 51m
Integration per filter:
Equipment:
