At the center of a star-filled image, the Centarus A galaxy (also known as NGC 5128 or Caldwell 77) is a not-quite-round warm glow, with a prominent dark lane running diagonally across it from lower center-left to upper center-right. The lane has small brighter areas, small dots at the left, then a large irregular patch in the center of the lane. Zooming in on the image rewards you with intriguing details.

The #Seestar S50 🔭 did an amazing job on this object from my location near Wilmington NC. Imaged on 08 April 2026 as part of the Astronomical League's "Caldwell observing program".

An alt-text to be proud of!

Also, quite a kid there.

C/2025 R3 in pre-dawn The comet is still visible, in an increasingly narrow window between it rising and dawn. I set the S50 out with a plan to take 4 images of 10 minutes each, starting at 5:30, when the comet would reach 15 degrees above the horizon. This is the third. It captured only about 5 out of the 10 minutes, affected by both the nearby moon and the increasing twilight. I had to tweak the contrast and brightness to bring out any detail in the tail. These images seem to show the tail in three parts: short broad spikes to either side of the longer "traditional" tail.

Pre-dawn image of comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) The comet is still visible, in an increasingly narrow window between it rising and dawn. I set the S50 out with a plan to take 4 images of 10 minutes each, starting at 5:30, when the comet would reach 15 degrees above the horizon. The first two images failed. This is the last image only 4 minutes out of 10 wall-clock time. Even the 4 minutes was affected by both the nearby moon and the increasing twilight. I had to tweak the contrast and brightness to bring out any detail in the tail. These images seem to show the tail in three parts: short broad spikes to either side of the longer "traditional" tail.

C/2025 R3 is still visible, barely between rising & dawn.

#Seestar S50 🔭w/plan: 4 images 10 mins, fromstarting 5:30. Third captured 5 of 10 minutes. Last 4 of 10, affected by moon and & increasing twilight. Tweaked contrast & brightness images to bring out any detail in tail.

Galaxy M101 in Ursa Major. It is a beautiful face on spiral galaxy. The outermost arm has a distinctive kink which makes it instantly recognizable.

For comparison, here’s the same galaxy taken with an S 50, about 90 minutes of 10 second exposures #seestar 🔭

“The longer you wear them the stronger they get…”

The comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) glows against a backdrop of stars. The comet has a bright greenish-blue head, and a long tenuous tail extending out past the top of the frame. Seestars don't track comets very well, so there may be some blurring, but it's really quite a nice image for being so close to dawn.

Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS), imaged with a #Seestar S50 🔭 just before dawn. 9 minutes of 10s frames, AI denoised and contrast and brightness tweaked in the Seestar app. Currently brighter than 6th mag, so in theory visible unaided-eye. Probably have better luck with binoculars or 'scope, though.

At the center of a rich star field is a subtly colored galaxy, almost round, with a dark dust lane diagonally from the lower center left to the top center right. The dust lane shows internal structure of dark bands with a lighter overlay from right to about 1/2 way to the left. Zooming in shows the galaxy is somewhat irregularly shaped, not perfectly round. A chain of stars extends from the lower left diagonally up to just above the galaxy, and another arc of stars stretches from about the half way point of the chain horizontally to just below the galaxy.

Galaxy Centaurus A (aka NGC 1258, or C77), imaged with a #Seestar S50 🔭. 21 minutes of 10s frames internally stacked, then AI de-noised with brightness & contrast tweaked.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur...

I like the strong dust lane with internal structure across the center.

How long they'll last? Or how long they'll survive....

One thing the S30 did capture nicely is the asterism beside the galaxy. I call it the Scythe, but some call it Jaws. Very pretty rendition of that.

Partly depends on local sky brightness. I’m lucky to live under LM 5 sky, and have access to LM 6 just 30 minutes away.

The core of M44 (the Beehive cluster) stretches diagonally upward from the lower left corner. About a dozen brighter stars appear amongst many ore dimmer ones. In the top right corner the planet Mars is an orange(ish) over-exposed glow.

Here's the center part of M44, imaged during the close #Mars pass last May. #Seestar S50 🔭 using framing to capture both the cluster and the planet.

Mi komencis per tiu libro antaux kvardek kvin jaroj

When I was growing up as a new astronomer back in the '70s and 80's, the "Pinwheel Galaxy" referred to M33. Apparently usage is changing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwhee...

I blame SIMBAD: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMBAD

Dankon. Post iom da penso, mi nun prefers la pli simpla "Ĉiu bildo bezonas alternativan tekston"

Antaŭ ol mi aldonis la alternativan tekston por bildo, mi vidis ĉi tiun averton: "Al unu aŭ pli da bildoj mankas alternativa teksto." Tiu aspektis strange al mi. Mi eble preferus "unu aŭ pli da bildoj mankas alternativan tekston", Eble la "al" celas eviti "alternativaJn tekstoJn"? Opinioj?

An astro-image of open cluster M50 in Monoceros. Two or three brightish stars, a dozen or so less so, and another 2-3 dozen fainter ones stand out agains a rich winter Milky Way background. The cluster is centered, covers nearly half the frame left to right, and about 1/5 of the frame top to bottom. It is elongated left to right. It looks a bit like a bug with an elongated proboscis pointing down, sweeping arcs of stars to the left and right for legs, with a bulbous abdomen at the top of the cluster.

Open star cluster M50 in Monoceros (the unicorn). 6 minutes of 10s exposures with an #Seestar #S50 🔭
Fairly easy to find (located about 1/4 of the way from Sirius to Procyon), this cluster looks quite nice in just about any telescope, as well as my 10x50 #binoculars.

Against a star filled dark background, M104 (the Sombrero galaxy) is almost perfectly edge-on. It is showing off its dark lane, with the galactic core bulge visible above and below the disk.

I think the S50 🔭's greater magnification and aperture do help. Here's 6 minutes on M104 from my back yard (LM 5). #Seestar #M104 #Galaxy

An image of about half of a nearly-first-quarter-moon has a silhouetted spider apparently traveling from Mare Fecunditatis towards Mare Nectaris.

Apparently the image got lost... #moon #spider #suprise!

An image of the northern half of a waxing crescent moon. Mare Nectar's is the grey area, with several craters curling around it. a short distance away is a short bright bar, which is part of the much longer Rupes Altai, part of the outer edge of the mare.

TIL that that small bright bar below and to the right of Mare Nectaris is part of Rupes Altai, located near the center of the larger feature, and highlighted by the angle of the illumination.

Zoomed in in this image from a couple days later. #Seestar S50🔭 #moon

Showing the moon in a 10" Coulter 🔭 to a guest. Seeing was only adequate, but they were still impressed. When the moon moved to edge of FOV, a new lunar feature was revealed. Cell phone afocal thru eyepiece.

#moon #spider #surprise!

I may need to relocate the unexpected guest.

Don't forget sidus ludovicianum! Named by a butt-kissing court astronomer after Mad King Ludvig.
#starNames

Spring peepers and others, including the occasional toad. #Frogs

"That is the sort of arrant nonsense up with which I will not put" -- W. Churchill

The Ship's Baby changes from "fat Vicky" to Bridget. A girl who asserts herself, and knows her self well.

"I knew I was old enough to be a human sacrifice"

#SecretWater #SwallowsAndAmazons

Kajto - Tohuvabohuo YouTube video by Jacinto Yogui

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQLV...

"La plej bela estas tohovobohuo"

Someone had to say it!

Across the dark background of space are scattered points of light. The three brightest in the top third are stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Nearly a dozen are distant galaxies, part of the Coma Berenices galaxy cluster. Some of these have fuzzy halos of light around them. Others are so small or far away they appear star like.

Here's the completed image (without marks).

An image of the "stargazing" screen of the S50 cell phone app. The black background of the sky is sprinkled stars, some three are brighter but most are very faint. Almost indistinguishable from the stars are many many tiny galaxies. The "mark" feature of the app has been turned on, and each deep-sky object has been circled and labeled. About two dozen galaxies are identified, most or all members of the Coma cluster of galaxies.

Attached is a screen-shot of the S50 app imaging galaxy NGC 4889. According to the AL Caldwell observing list it's: "...brightest of the Coma cluster". I turned on the "mark" function, which labels all the DSOs in the field. FOV of S50 is about .8 x 1.3 degrees

That's a lotta little galaxies...

Klaatu __ Hope 1977 Full Album YouTube video by Joy Setiawan

Hope, by Klaatu
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVX9...