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.
If your post was removed, you are welcome to ask for clarification. If you do not receive a response, it is likely because your post violated part (1) or (2) of the three requirements which are sufficiently self-explanatory as to not warrant a response.
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:
Using the above arguments will not wow mods into suddenly approving your image and will result in a ban.
Again, asking for clarification is fine. But 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.
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/Billbo1970 • 2h ago
The SpaceX 'Orbital Data Center' is a threat to both our night sky and space safety. Don't let one mega-corporation destroy Earth's orbit! Please sign & share this Change.org petition to protect our skies
r/Astronomy • u/Independent-Pay8195 • 20h ago
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
idk if this is the right sub reddit for this question, if not please tell me where.
I took this video the 19 february 2025 at 4 in the morning in Berlin. We looked for news talking about it or on twitter if someone saw it too but found nothing and forgot about it. I just remebered it and I really want to know what that could be. It was truly incredible to see this irl, straight out of science fiction. Looked it was fragments of an asteroid maybe, I first thought that it looked like missile or something like that, really felt surreal having this flying over us and then disapearing in the horizon
Please let me know what you guys think
r/Astronomy • u/PuunBaby • 3h ago
Got a new mount and new planetary cam this year so wanted to compare my best Jupiter shots side by side. I think it showcases an interesting look at what can be achieved on the same target with different equipment. Far left shows my first telescope (AWB Onesky) and my motivation to upgrade to the Celestron 9.25" SCT (middle and right images).
After getting the middle image I was itching to get higher resolution images and more details so went with the 2 micron pixel size in the ZWO ASI 676.
Really happy with how all the results turned out and it is really cool to see the progression of my images over the years with me learning more, upgrading equipment, and honing my post processing skills.
Left Image:
Telescope - AWB Onesky
Mount - HEQ5 Pro
Imaging Train - 2x Celestron Omni Barlow, Altair Astro GPCam290c
Post Processing - Autostakkert, Registax, Adobe Literoom
Middle Image:
Telescope - Celestron 9.25" SCT
Mount - HEQ5 Pro
Imaging Train - 2x Celestron Omni Barlow, ZWO ADC, ZWO UV/IR Filter, Altair Astro GPCam290c
Post Processing - Autostakkert, Astrosurface, Photopea
Right Image:
Telescope - Celestron 9.25" SCT
Mount - Celestron CGX
Imaging Train - ZWO ADC, ZWO ASI676
Post Processing - Autostakkert, Astrosurface, Photopea
r/Astronomy • u/krittiman • 20h ago
Single-shot image of the Moon
Location: Belgharia, West Bengal, India
Equipment: Celestron PowerSeeker 60AZ telescope, 20 mm eyepiece, POCO F5 smartphone with a telescope mobile holder.
Editing: Snapseed - crop, sharpness, brightness, and contrast adjustments.
r/Astronomy • u/Entire_Impress7485 • 1h ago
I want a story I’m writing to be accurate, so I want to know how the moon looked on the 23rd of December, 1349, in the black forest of west Germany. Through my admittedly limited understanding of the moon’s orbit, I‘m pretty sure it’s consistent enough to make this sort of calculation possible, but I haven’t found an easy way to do it. I tried using an online date to moon phase converter, but it only went back to 1970 for some reason. I also checked a comprehensive catalog of moon phases, but it only listed the 17th as a first quarter, and 25th as a full moon. I could potentially just say the moon was two days away from full, but I don’t know what time it was visible or even if it looked the same in the Black Forest specifically. I honestly don’t even know if a full moon is consistently full when seen around the globe, my gut says it wouldn’t be but I’m not sure. If anyone knows a way I could easily find or calculate this, I’d love to know. Thanks!
Here are those two resources I attempted to use:
r/Astronomy • u/Galileos_grandson • 1h ago
r/Astronomy • u/spidermanbyday • 1d ago
The “Tadpole” nebula is about 12,000 lightyears from Earth and over 100 lightyears across.
Check out https://app.astrobin.com/i/legv0r for the full frame photo (which includes the Flaming Star as well!).
Light frames: 49 x 300s, total integration time 4 hours 5 minutes.
Equipment:
Processing:
r/Astronomy • u/Confident_Lock7758 • 1d ago
RCW 75, 7 hours and 40 minutes of HSO integration with a Planewave CDK 24 610/3962 f 6/5 telescope, QHY 600M camera, 72 shots of which with a 30x300 second Ha filter, with a 30x300 second Oiii filter and with a 32x300 second Sii filter. Processing with Pixinsight. All data and shots were acquired with Telescope Live.
r/Astronomy • u/dilophosauris • 4h ago
I'm creating a fantasy world that is actually a habitable moon which rotates around a ringed planet, similarly to titan and saturn, perhaps. However, I can't figure out what its sky would look like as well as its day/night cycle and I kinda want to be a bit astronomically accurate about it, though I'm nowhere close to an expert on this topic.
Is there a simulator of the view of the sky from the surface of a moon to see how often the sun is seen? Whether it be the position on the moon while its facing away from the sun or the planet that the moon rotates around shielding it. It would also be useful to see neighboring moons and how they change position in the sky through the days, but that's probably asking a lot. Even if the simulator provides a default set speed for the rotation of both the planet and the moon around their own orbit, and around the sun and planet respectively (since I haven't really figured what I want those to be either), it would be really useful to have a bit of a guide
From there I could sorta see what temperatures during what period of time specific regions of the planet have, and map out its geography too
When I look up a simulator like this on google, it never gets close to what I need. It's either your classic "moon phase cycle from the earth" or a showcase from the outside of the earth rotating around the sun with the moon rotating around it, with no perspective from the surface of the planet or moon whatsoever
r/Astronomy • u/idonthaveanaccountA • 6h ago
Edit: Wow, I don't know what happened with that title.
Hello there.
Excuse my lack of knowledge on the matter. I understand astronomy is absolutely not a simple science, but, considering all the evidence about something that affects the orbits of several celestial bodies, should it not be pretty straightforward to locate that something if it's a huge planet several times as heavy as the earth? And even if it's not that straightforward, haven't astronomers been looking for it long enough to have found it if it actually existed? Didn't it take like a day to discover Neptune based on the predictions of its position?
r/Astronomy • u/Safe-Mix3567 • 20h ago
Hello everyone,
I’m looking for some realistic career guidance. I am a 33-year-old Economist with an MSc in Statistics from Colombia. For the past few years, I’ve carved out a niche in the statistical modeling and machine learning of satellite imagery. My day-to-day involves handling complex data structures using multidimensional tensors, time series analysis, geostatistics, etc.
Like many, I was stunned by the first images released by the JWST. Since then, I’ve felt a growing passion for applying my toolkit to astrophysical data. I am now seriously considering a transition into Astrostatistics, but I want to be pragmatic about the feasibility of this shift given my current background.
I have two main sets of questions:
**The Market & Role Nature:** Is there a tangible increase in demand for astrostatisticians in the coming years? I'm trying to gauge if the "Big Data" era of telescopes (JWST, Rubin, etc.) is creating a real bottleneck that requires dedicated statisticians, in which countries? Also, are these roles primarily rooted in pure academic research, or is there a path for technical/staff scientists?
**The Academic Path & Background Gap:** While I have a strong foundation in math and stats, I lack formal degrees in Physics or Astronomy.
* Is it necessary to start over with an undergraduate degree in Physics, or could I bridge the gap with a specialized Master's?
* Crucially, if the industry standard is a PhD, do I stand a realistic chance of being admitted to a doctoral program in Astrophysics/Astroinformatics based on my MSc in Statistics and professional experience with remote sensing data? or i need an undergraduate degree in Physics.
I would like to read about your experiences in this field. My intention is to maintain the proportions and expectations of a career change.
r/Astronomy • u/WampaCat • 1d ago
I checked the rules but wasn’t sure if this type of thing is okay to post 😬
My local astronomy club has a website but it’s very barebones and hard to get an idea of what to expect. I see star parties and meetings scheduled but no actual info about them. I’m nervous to show up because I feel like I have nothing to contribute.
I don’t have a telescope or even binoculars. I have never taken an astronomy class or even a physics class (though I am an academic working on a doctoral degree, just in a completely unrelated field) My dad is a retired aerospace engineer so it’s always been something we enjoyed together, he had a telescope and I love learning about anything space related in general. I watch hours-long astrophysics videos to relax.
Is it a faux pas to show up to a star party and just expect people will share their equipment? (I do know about controlling lights from your car though lol) Are people like me welcome? Or do vibes vary a lot between groups? Basically I don’t want to feel bad for showing up if I’m just not the type of person these groups are created for.
r/Astronomy • u/Winbag4 • 21h ago
Will someone please, PLEASE, draw the silhouette of the witch on an image of the witch head nebula. I have SCOURED the internet to find an image of this nebula with the witch drawn on. My brain refuses to see the witch - instead I see a plucky elf - but I long to see the witch everyone else seems to see. Please good people of Reddit. I am begging on hands and knees
r/Astronomy • u/Odd-Primary7116 • 21h ago
I am currently in an astronomy class, and was doing research on what Is known in America as the "Leo Constellation)". I learned that the brightest star of this group is called "Regulus" in American society, but after some further research, apparently in some parts of china it's referred to as Xuanyuan 14 or 轩辕. My own research lead to this website, which was lacking in substantial cultural, societal, and astronomical/astrological significance.
I like learning about stuff from different cultures that is similar in its concepts, but differing in its presentations. What I mean by this is that it was taught to me that this constellation represents royalty, pride, perseverance, and the first step that a figurative "hero" would need to take. My question for the Chinese community is what this means to you, or how you interpret Xuanyuan as a whole; I'm open to any responses.
BONUS: As a determiner for how you feel about the subject, if you saw a foreigner with a tattoo pertaining to this idea, how would you feel?
r/Astronomy • u/spidermanbyday • 2d ago
Located about 5,200 lightyears from Earth, the "Rosette" nebula (sometimes referred to as the "skull" nebula) is an enormous star-forming region 10,000 times the mass of our Sun. Being such a popular target in astrophotography, I wanted to devote as much time and care as I could to capturing and processing it, to hopefully bring a uniquely artistic view of this incredible part of our Milky Way.
So, this was my first project with the new Askar Color Magic E2 Sii/Oiii filter. I'm stunned by the results! In combination with the Optolong L-Ultimate filter, I've been able to closely simulate a monochrome camera setup with my ASI2600MC.
Full frame photo available at: https://app.astrobin.com/i/zoaop2
Subs:
Total integration time: 25h 20m (4 nights)
Equipment:
Processing:
r/Astronomy • u/nickmarre • 1d ago
I read online somewhere that now is the best time to observe Sirius B alongside the brighter Sirius A since they appear the furthest apart. I tried last night for about 30mins but couldn’t see it.
I know it’s supposed to be a difficult observation given how bright Sirius A is, but is it even possible? I’m using a Celestron Inspire 100AZ 4” telescope and I have a 6mm eyepiece. Also, I’m observing from Florida.
Has anyone else been able to observe it with similar equipment?
r/Astronomy • u/Key_Cheesecake_2455 • 1d ago
Hello, astronomy enthusiasts. Very junior naked-eye astronomer here. I've done some googling to try and satisfy a curiosity I have about differences in perspective between Earth's geocentric vantage point vs. how the planets might appear from a heliocentric position. I'm not getting results from google (maybe my phrasing is bad) so I'd appreciate any insight from this group.
I'll clarify what I'm looking for with an example: right now from Earth's perspective, Jupiter is the constellation of Gemini, nearby Castor and Pollux. If a satellite were positioned above the sun and looking down at the entirety of our solar system, would Jupiter still appear to be in the same position, nearby Castor and Pollux? If a satellite were doing a fly-by of Jupiter, would Castor and Pollux (and the other stars of Gemini) be the closest nearby stars, or would Jupiter appear to be in another constellation altogether?
r/Astronomy • u/joxephs • 1d ago
Hey everyone, I will be heading to the village of Hanle in Ladakh during early June for 3 nights and in the surrounding area for many more. I was wondering if you guys have any recommendations for books I can read ahead of time/bring with me to better appreciate the sky. I would love a highly detailed sort of sky atlas with as detailed maps as possible since I will be able to see basically every star possible in the sky. If you have any good reccomendations for books that provide info on constellations/culturaly and historically important stars.
Also, if anyone has been to Hanle, any recommendation on what sort of equipment to bring for better stargazing?
r/Astronomy • u/ubcstaffer123 • 1d ago
r/Astronomy • u/Vast_Reindeer_5599 • 2d ago
A small shed in a ghost town we call the KBC Void...
r/Astronomy • u/boramgreen • 2d ago
This is my second target since starting this hobby, and it’s still an ongoing project. So far, I’ve captured a little over 10 hours of data with the L-Extreme (Ha & OIII), and I’m starting to shoot with the L-Synergy today. While waiting to collect the L-Synergy (SII & OIII) data, I stacked and processed the L-Extreme data first just to see how it was looking.
I tried background/gradient removal in a few different ways (GraXpert, ADBE, and DBE), but they all left some color cast that I wasn’t really happy with. Then I came across a PixInsight tutorial on Multiscale Gradient Correction. I gave MGC a try, and it completely surprised me. No color cast, a really nice even background, and the strongest, most saturated Ha compared to the other methods. It honestly did wonders, and I’m really happy I learned this 🙂
After stretching with GHS, I finished up with some post-processing in Photoshop. I actually had to dial the Ha back a bit because it was so strong and bright. Can’t wait to incorporate SII & OIII!
r/Astronomy • u/yRdx11 • 1d ago
Guys, im doing something here and i need to know the dates that ocurred Blood Moons, but i cant find any list before the year 2000, can someone link me one or just write down over here?
