This was totality — photographed from my parents’ yard in Southern Illinois during the April 8, 2024 eclipse.

The sun’s corona was blazing, and we could even see flares along the edge.

A moment of awe, silence, and cosmic perspective.

In contrast to the popular idea of black holes constantly "gobbling up" matter, they can spend long periods of time in a dormant, inactive phase. But sometimes, they pop back to life. Such was the case with the black hole at the center of an unremarkable galaxy some 300 light-years away. The gravitational monster "suddenly lit up and recently began producing unprecedented flashes of X-ray light.” Read about it from phys.org:

https://flip.it/_0u79-

Clearing out some more editing backlog. Here's the Tulip Nebula from the Spring 2024 Bootleg Astronomy Star Party. More details on Telescopius and Astrobin. Thanks for looking and Clear Skies!

TS-90
ZWO Optical 533 MC Pro
SW EQ6R Pro
Optolong L-Enh
40x180

12:15Uhr in #Hannover
Danke @memo für die Erinnerung :-)
#foto #mywork #partielle_Sonnenfinsternis #Sonnenfinsternis #backyardastronomy

A slightly better shot of #mercury & #venus and an almost-full #moon over #Belfast from my #kitchen window this evening.

6% beleuchtet, und trotzdem überstrahlt. Da braucht es dann doch mehr Brennweite, oder deutlich kürzer belichten (vielleicht morgen nochmal früher probieren, wenn das Nachbarhaus nicht in den Weg kommt) ...

I remember seeing the Horsehead nebula in my parents’ encyclopedia as a kid. I was amazed at how such a thing could exist. And now technologyy has evolved so far, that I can take the same picture from my own backyard!
Here it is accompanied by the Flame nebula in the lower left together with the star Allnitak, which is the left most star in Orion’s belt. #horsehead #B33 #NGC2023 #horseheadnebula #flamenebula #astronomy #astrophotography #deepsky #backyardastronomy #astroshots #astrophoto #Space #universe #galaxy #universetoday #nightsky #stars #galaxy #nightphotography #skywatcher #touptek #backyardastrophotography

#Astrodon , I have a question. I've been taking photos of the LMC - not the main bit where all the action is, but the outskirts.

Do you see the thing that looks somewhat like a planetary nebula, towards the upper right and forming a triangle with NGC 2114 and NGC 2117, looking like a circle with a cluster in it?
I put it into astrometry.net but it hasn't annotated it. I've provided the annotated version too.

What is it, does anyone know? It's what led me to target the area in the first place and it looks interesting, I'd like to know more about it.

Otherwise I'm just going to call it Leece's Lucent Pearl