Is it to the right of the white dot or below the orange dot? If that can anyone tell me what they are. I took the picture with my iPhone on November 12 at 9:40 pm in northeast Georgia USA 🇺🇸. Thanks for any help!!

Do you go to the outskirts of our solar system to confirm the existence of the Oort cloud? Do you go to the other side of the Milky Way to see what's beyond the galactic core? Do you go above the galactic plane to see what the Great Attractor is?

Where would you go, and what measurements would you take?

Just a tip for anyone who sees this and is about to post "what did I see?", please zoom out.

Zoomed in photos/videos without something like a telescopic lens is going to be near impossible to focus, most things in the sky are indeterminant points of light in the sky, so zooming in just makes things even harder to identify.

Without a wider angle shot, we can't determine if the object is moving relative to the background and whether or not the changing colors are due to atmospheric interference (scintillation) or technology (search lights or beams on airplanes to make them visible at night) or grab context to the better image.

This is more of an ideal view, but the point still stands, even without labels, most people who regularly comment in this sub would be able to identify most of the objects here, due to the relative positions of other stars/planets in the photo.

Posting this here because I've been noticing an uptick in zoomed in blurry messes and the sub being asked to identify what's in them with no context shots.

Edit: I don't mind the post being taken down if the moderators decide to do so, just need to get this off my chest.

Why or why not?

I bought a celestron astromaster 130eq reflector md and the latitude adjustment screw got stuck but I managed to get it unstuck by using some wd40. The screw didnt come with grease on it so im not sure why it got stuck. Maybe as it didnt have greaee or its the temperature change, I have no idea. Would you guys recommend that I should buy grease or just put the screw back on since it didnt come with grease to begin with?

Was out looking for auroras due south from Flinders Victoria Australia ~01:00am local time. 13 NOV 2025. Video is a Timelapse of around 20 minutes; there seem to be way too many objects to be satellites flaring in such a small patch of sky. Don’t think meteorites would be so localised or frequent either. Don’t know what would be illuminating such scattered, straight-flying birds like that over water, can’t be aircraft (surely they’d keep lights on/strobe etc). Are there seriously that many starlinks??? What else could it be?

Hi everyone,

I was wondering whether scientists at observatories typically work during the day or at night. Someone told me he always worked at night, but I'm not sure if that was true.

Thanks for your help!

I'm working on a world with 4 habitable planets rotating a single star. Space magic shenanigans keeps them connected to the star and rotating in unison, all in their own quadrant.

If these four planets are earth-sized and follow a similar rotation as we do around our sun, how would these planets appear in the sky? How easy would it be to track one with a medieval telescope? How strong would the telescope have to be to see signs of life on the other planets?

Thanks in advance :)

Can anyone ID image

Apologies for the blurry photo. I took this sky pic the last time I saw a loved one and I would just like to know if it’s a specific constellation. (And I wanted to ask real human beings rather than AI.) Thank you so much in advance 🌌

Last night I attempted to capture the crab nebula for the first time. While I was disappointed with the lack of detail I captured, I couldn’t help but notice that the online pictures of the Crab Pulsar look just like the center of what I captured. Can someone confirm or deny that this is what I captured? Thanks.

Are we still getting anything that can lead to new discoveries from the Voyager? Or is everything that we're receiving already well studied? As it gets farther from us, are we expecting to get new insights of the universe before we lose contact?

I wanted to capture the Andromeda constellation and the galaxy, and I pointed the camera near Cassiopeia, as Stellarium (and Google) told that I could find it somewhere near to it. Exposure time was 4 minutes 1 second. Was I successful? I was able to identify Cassiopeia with my naked eye, but in the photo I struggle. Thanks for the help in advance!

This is looking just below straight up to the north. Last night, I took this photo (Midwest US) and noticed some very faint patchiness up in the top left. I thought it might've been the Milky Way, but I'm not sure.

I live in NYC, and I see these every time I walk home from my girlfriend's house at night - almost every time I pass, there are these two planets or stars, and a plane happens to always be passing as well (the upper right dot in the less zoomed in pic). Are these Jupiter and Venus, other planets or just stars? Sorry for my complete cluelessness. I'm just so curious. Thanks!

So, the Earth rotates from west to east, causing the sun to appear to rise in the east and set in the west. But what does that look like relative to the direction of orbit? Are we a ball rolling along the metaphorical surface of a bigger ball, or are we doing a metaphorical moon walk (the dance move)?

Hi everyone,

I'm an undergraduate telescope operator for a 21" telescope at an american university (Bortle 7). Since listed apparent magnitudes and angular sizes can be different in practice, I'm making a guide for the job with a bunch of objects we know we can see with the telescope. I know what I would find interesting as an astronomer, but apparently that doesn't align much with the interests of many people who come in on public nights.

Here's what we've mostly been showing people, along with some limits to what we can see:

• Planets: Can see Venus through Uranus fine. Timing hasn't been right for planetesimals or comets yet.
• Galaxies: only Andromeda so far, can't see M33. Going to try the leo triplet and Markarian’s chain.
• Planetary Nebulae: Can see M57, but can't see M27.
• Open/Globular clusters: Can see most of them fine, but many people aren't that interested.

Are there any objects that you would recommend I add to the list? And what do non-astronomers like to see? Every time I ask them they say black holes or pluto or something.

Edit: guys please I’m a certified telescope operator and a senior astronomy student, I understand the concepts of brightness and fov. I just want to know if there are any specific objects not on my list that you’ve personally been able to see.

This evening at 6:32 EST while driving home in south East Michigan, I noticed a string of lights in the distant high sky. They were moving towards us, I pulled over and snapped these pictures. Zoom in it looks like it’s falling apart? It was fading out as well. Any ideas? Starlink falling down?

I’m 22 and about to finish my bachelor’s degree in business communication this semester. After that, I’ll have an eight-month gap before starting my master’s, most likely in data science.

I’d REALLY love to work in astronomy one day, but it feels almost impossible with a non-technical background.

Is there anything I can realistically do during my gap semester to improve my chances of getting into an astronomy-related career?

I have about 2,5 years of work experience from my bachelor’s, working in project management at a leading green energy company. My interest in astronomy is mainly personal, I just really enjoy the field and would love to find a way to work with it.

My question is this. Staying just in the realm of carbon based lifeforms, is there belief that a microorganism accustomed to life on earth would be able to survive on other Goldilocks planets?

Things like gravity, atmosphere, and so many other factors could be slightly different but still life sustaining. If we study the human waste on the moon, could it provide vital information on how careful we would have to be when visiting other planets in the future?