Wore my #sockstakovich to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s magnificent performance of Shostakovich’s 4th #shostakovich #music

My reflection on 'The Magic Faraway Tree' (the movie), and how 'The Magic Faraway Tree' (the book) was my introduction to independent reading when I was seven. #books #movies open.substack.com/pub/asteroid...

NGC 2903, a beautiful barred spiral galaxy 30,000,000 light years away in Leo. What would our galaxy look like from over there? May 11th 2026 #astrophotography

Two galaxies in Leo: M65 (left), 42,000,000 light years away, and M66 (right), 31,000,000 light years away. Each measures at least 100,000 light years in diameter. Think of the billions of stars within each of these ancient galaxies. May 11th 2026 #astrophotography

The star λ Centauri, 390 light years away, superimposed on the beautiful cluster IC 2944, which is much further away at 6,500 light years. May 11th 2026 #astrophotography

Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS), May 11th 2026, currently in Orion and 127,000,000 kilometres away. It is now outbound, and is expected to be eventually ejected from the solar system. Farewell then, lonely green traveller. #astrophotography

The arrow points to a green smudge which is Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS), currently in Orion and 122,000 kilometres away. To the right is M42, the Orion Nebula. I couldn't make out the comet's tail but there's always tomorrow. Canon R6 camera, May 10th 2026 #astrophotography

Release the #spaceskeletons Files IMMEDIATELY

Found this on the internet @ckfrain.bsky.social May the Fourth Be With You

Full Moon behind a bit of thin cloud and smoke haze. May 1st 2026 #astrophotography

Dixon Recycled Records is still going strong. Brothers and I first discovered Styx, Queen and Genesis records via the Dandenong store. As for Blackburn: I cleared them of all their Shostakovich CDs. Took me a while but I did it. #CDsAtoZ 💿 www.easternmelburnian.com.au/p/dixon-blac...

Centaurus A (NGC 5128), a strange elliptical galaxy in Centaurus, 13,000,000 light years away. A massive dust lane cuts across the illuminated part. April 23rd 2026 #astrophotography

Autumn in Mount Evelyn, Victoria 🇦🇺

Moon, April 23rd 2026, a waxing crescent and still chuffed at her rendezvous with human beings earlier this month. The three prominent craters near the centre are Arzachel (top), Alphonsus and Ptolemaeus. #astrophotography

926. Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Symphony No. 18 ‘War - there is no word more cruel’ and Trumpet Concerto. St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir with soloists. Andrew Balio: trumpet. Conducted by Vladimir Lande. Beautiful. #CDsAtoZ 💿

Section of the beautiful Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), April 18th 2026 #astrophotography

ω Centauri, the largest known globular cluster in the Milky Way. It contains roughly 10,000,000 stars, is 17,000 light years away and measures 150 light years across. April 18th 2026 #astrophotography

A beautiful part of the sky in Carina, NGC 3581-2 is a nebula 9,000 light years away. April 18th 2026 #astrophotography

925. Mike Oldfield: Hergest Ridge. Deluxe edition with 2010 remix, 1974 original mix, original demo and 5.1 mix. A beautiful piece of music, and here there are many ways to enjoy it. #CDsAtoZ 💿

924. Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn. A truly fantastic piece of music, which has the premise of an artist’s drug adventure. Hence the movement about him marching to the gallows. #CDsAtoZ 💿

Orange man is having a crack at the Pope now. 🍊 Needless to say, it’s time for . . .

Is he dead yet? Seriously.

Planets are bloody hard to photograph. They are dim compared with stars and the atmosphere here on Earth affects the quality of the light coming through. Anyway, here's Jupiter and it turned out OK. March 30th 2026 #astrophotography

Waxing gibbous Moon, a couple of days before full, March 30th 2026. All going well, four astronauts will be heading to the Moon this week on @nasaartemis #astrophotography

Aussie here in solidarity with our pro-democracy friends in the USA 🇺🇸 today! We are watching and we are with you 🇦🇺 #NoKings

#astrophotography How I came to do it, how I do it, and a little bit about why I do it. 🔭 substack.com/@asteroidpro...

My “review” of Project Hail Mary but shhhh, some spoilers. A beautiful movie with something for everyone, and maybe everything for someone. substack.com/@asteroidpro...

The Running Woman Nebula (Sh2-279), a reflection nebula 1,500 light years away in Orion. Beautiful blue glow stretching light years across. #astrophotography

The Spiral Planetary Nebula (NGC 5189) in the constellation Musca. A planetary nebula whose central star may have a small stellar companion, hence the s-shape. Lovely amongst the stars of the Milky Way. 3,000 light years away. March 22nd 2026 #astrophotography

923. XTC: The Big Express. Surround Sound Series with BluRay, remixed by Steven Wilson. Fantastic remix of XTC’s heaviest and loudest album. Lots of bonus tracks. #CDsAtoZ 💿

#CDsAtoZ 💿 #Styx

The Antennae Galaxies, NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, in Corvus. Two colliding galaxies, 70,000,000 light years away. Looking like an amoeba, an embryo, a flower, but covering a space of some 250,000 light years. I know, right. March 11th 2026 #astrophotography

922. Carl Orff: Die Kluge & Der Mond. Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchestra conducted by Herbert Kegel. Two one-act operettas with sprech (spoken word) in German. Very weird and very delightful, and very much in the elemental style that Orff brought to ‘Carmina Burana’. #CDsAtoZ 💿

921. The Police: Synchronicity. 2CD reissue with bonus tracks. There is not a poor song on this album; even “Mother” is magnificent. This is timeless and it could have been released yesterday. What a band. #CDsAtoZ 💿

NGC 2525, a barred spiral galaxy 70,000,000 light years away in Puppis. Difficult to see, as we are looking at it through the obscuring stars and dust of our own galaxy. But beautiful. March 10th 2026 #astrophotography

Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), 8,500 light years away. Thousands of stars in one of the richest areas of the Milky Way. March 10th 2026 #astrophotography

Waning gibbous Moon, March 11th 2026 at 1.30am. Early morning Moons are especially beautiful, with the dark lunar seas being prominent. The bright crater near the centre is Copernicus, 93 kilometres across and 3.8 kilometres deep. #astrophotography

State Library Victoria 📚 #booksky

Monochrome of Alnitak, one of the stars in Orion's Belt, with the Flame Nebula at right. March 5th 2026 #astrophotography

Orion Nebula (M42), March 5th 2026. The nebula covers a wide patch of sky, wider than my telescope's field of view. So I divided the area into quadrants, and merged the four resulting images, each made up of 25 x 4 second exposures. The end result is pretty good. #astrophotography

Waning gibbous Moon, two days past full. Lovely view of the ejecta rays and the craters near the terminator. March 5th 2026 #astrophotography

#MelbHenge March 3rd 2026. The Sun setting in the gap between Eureka Tower and the Rialto, which (from my vantage point) is where the Yarra flows. #sunsets #melbourne 🇦🇺

Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), a composite of two images. February 21st 2026 #astrophotography

Moody post-storm #MelbHenge February 27th 2026 #melbourne #sunsets

#MelbHenge is beginning. February 26th 2026 #sunsets #melbourne 🇦🇺

The star cluster M46 in the constellation Puppis, 5,000 light years away. Superimposed is the green planetary nebula NGC 2438, which is more than 3,000 light years closer to us. February 21st 2026 #astrophotography

Waxing crescent Moon, February 23rd 2026. 370,634 kilometres away at the moment. Lunar fun times are approaching, with a lunar eclipse in 8 days time (AEDT), and of course mission @nasaartemis being prepared for launch! 😍 #astrophotography

Wow.

The galaxy NGC 1566 in Dorado. Always a beauty to photograph. 69,000,000 light years away. The light from the hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy had travelled for almost 70 million years before reaching my telescope. I know, right. February 15th 2026 #astrophotography