Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) is adjacent to the star Zubenelgenubi tonight. The brightest star in Libra, it has one of the best roll-off-the-tongue names.. 🧪🔭

For the closest approach between #comets #SWAN & #ATLAS on 20th Oct I went to a darkish site with everything but a power pack for the mount. Next night was problematic - windy, light leaks, I messed up the flats - hence this belated and grubby rendition - see Alt texts. 🧪🔭

Well the smoke pretty much cleared and I got the two comets 4.5 degrees apart in one picture, along with Mars. They are moving in different directions, so are blurred against the fixed stars. I can fix this but for now here's a quick star-aligned stacked image along with an annotated version 🧪🔭

The attempt to capture two comets in one image with a diminutive telescope has been successful two nights ago from an urban environment and last night from a relatively dark (if smoke-affected) site. Will take a while to process the images 🧪🔭

Hoping some of the 'controlled hazard reduction burn' smoke leaves before the comet shows up 🧪🔭

Here are 'close-ups' of the two #comets as they appear in relation to each other and #Mars on the evenings of 20th & 21st September. Spica is out of shot. Comet #SWAN is likely to be about 2 magnitudes brighter than comet #ATLAS, but comet magnitudes are a bit - unpredictable.. 🧪🔭

New #comet #Swan will cross paths in the sky with another, fainter comet, C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) around September 20th. Here's how they're going: Details in next post.. 🧪🔭

New #comet #SWAN25B is now known as C/2025 R2 (SWAN). Here's where it will be until 30th September. It will soon appear close to another comet - see next two posts.. 🧪🔭

If you're more than 50 degrees north or south of the equator - and if it's dark, there could be some auroræ happening: (Times are in UT, which is ~same as GMT, or BST minus 1 hour).

Spent an hour in a local park in #Sydney to image the 'new' #comet SWAN25B as it appeared just below Spica and Mars. Bit of a tail despite the seeing conditions (light pollution, haze, low elevation). Canon 6D Mk1 on Askar SQA55 on SA Pro mount. Not yet visible to naked eye (use binoculars)🧪 🔭

For Dark Skies - a petition: www.darkskytraveller.com.au/post/dark-sk... 🔭🧪

Quick daytime #Moon over #Sydney this afternoon - SQA55 and Canon 600D 🧪🔭

Campaigners fear lamps will 'destroy night sky.' 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This: @vrubinobs.bsky.social 🧪🔭

#Aurora Northern/Southern Lights) status alerts just went sky-high:

Those things in the sky on 26th April - the view at different focal lengths: 1) #Venus, #Saturn, the #Moon & #Mercury over #Sydney on 26th April 2) Closer view 3) Still there (look carefully) as daylight arrives 4) Zoomed-in view of #Venus showing crescent 🔭🧪

Two more images from pre-dawn on 26th April in #Sydney Australia - this time two telephoto pics of the #Moon. Note the difference between the two exposures - 1/2 second shows #Earthshine while 1/40 second shows detail in the smiley crescent 🔭🧪

A whole bunch of things arrived in the east before dawn yesterday - among them the 5.6% illuminated #Moon with #earthshine, just 4 degrees from the #planet #Mercury. Here's the view from #Sydney - Sigma 18-300mm lens at 170mm on Canon 600D. 🔭🧪

Been digging through some older posts and found this #lunar #Saturn and #Titan #occultation from 2019 : www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/th... 🌗🪐 🧪🔭

Can you spot Proxima Centauri here - the closest #star to us after the sun? It's the third star in the triple system #AlphaCentauri (See second image). It orbits the double star Alpha Centauri AB, and is currently 3.5% closer to Earth than the main binary Alpha Centauri AB. Details in Alt texts.🔭

On this day a year ago I was at the Unit for Arid Zones of the Chapingo Autonomous University near Torreón, #Mexico. This was 3.8km from the #eclipse centreline and 85km along that line from the point of maximum. These are the first images I've posted from that total solar eclipse - big backlog 🔭🧪

The recent #Moon - #Pleiades #occultation was invisible from #Oz but here's one I saw in the #UK on 7th Aug 2007. I took some pics with a cheap compact camera and sent them to Rhod Sharp on the BBC's 'Up All Night' radio show - here's what he said - Need sound on 🙂🔭🧪

Here's the view of (left to right) #Venus, #Mercury and #Saturn yesterday - but 5 minutes earlier (5:09am local time) and through a longer lens (80mm). Too dark to see the Pacific Ocean in these images - 2nd pic has the #planets labelled. 🔭

Three #planets were within about 8 degrees of each other this morning as seen from Dee Why, #Sydney #Australia this morning before dawn. Left to right, low over the Pacific Ocean - #Venus, #Mercury and #Saturn. Image lightened a little to show the dark ocean better on a phone screen 🔭🧪

@bot.astronomy.blue signup

Looks like I have to add emojis to get a post to appear in particular threads - so - here goes for planetary alignments: bsky.app/profile/edwi... 🔭🧪

There's been a lot of hype about #planetary #alignments again - a similar situation occurred in 2022 - but with the #planets all in the same quarter of the sky - here's the view from #Oz - note Venus's reflection in the ocean - bottom right - asteroid Vesta was also visible (1 pic - 3 versions)

@davidbflower.bsky.social Hey thanks for the repost - it might be worth suggesting that, for your astro pics, and mine and others, that people might brighten their phone displays while they look - it seems to make a big difference 🙂

Still experimenting with how BlueSky works: bsky.app/profile/edwi... #astrophotography

#Mars made a close 'approach' to the Beehive Cluster (M44) on 3rd Dec as seen from Sydney. There was a gap in the clouds revealing a misty sky, but at 2.30am Mars was still behind the trees (Pic 1, 80mm). Same story at 2.45am (Pic 2, 300mm). But by 3.40am I'd stacked 136 subs into Pic 3 (300mm) 1/2

Ok - so here comes my first post on 🦋. Not having put a whole lot on Twitter/X for quite some time, I'll try and put up things which weren't posted but maybe are worth looking at - as well as new stuff