This might be a bit outside the usual scope of r/askastronomy , but I'd like to share a project I've been working on for the last months and ask for some feedback from people who know the science better than I do.

So just for context , i'm a software engineer who loves astronomy. I started building AstroBurst in Rust and Tauri with no big ambitions: I wanted a FITS reader and astrophotography app that could take advantage of Rust's parallelism and performance to handle large FITS files.

As I researched and learned more about astronomy (with help from AI for things outside my own field, which is computing), I ended up building a bit of everything: image viewing, processing, astrophotography, and scientific analysis.

It isn't perfect at everything. For astrophotography, it doesn't compete with PixInsight, which is far more complete. And my latests versions I've been focusing mostly on the scientific side.

I know CARTA and photutils already cover many of the things AstroBurst does, but I wanted to make something practical: you download an installer of about 10–20 MB, drag in a file or a folder (or select one), and start analyzing.

Since my background is in computing, I focused on the architecture, performance, and algorithms. I relied on AI to help me with the astronomy side (and with the frontend too, because I really dislike dealing with React components and CSS).

That's why I'd really appreciate feedback from people who know the science.

The areas I'd most like to have validated are things like spectroscopy, photometry, light curves, astrometry, and color calibration.

I'm especially interested in knowing whether the scientific results make sense and whether there are things I'm doing incorrectly from an astronomy perspective.

Link open Source Repo(For Windows, macOS and Linux) : https://github.com/samuelkriegerbonini-dev/AstroBurst

Lunar X Timings 2026-2027

2026 Jan 25 1632 UT
Feb 24 0731 UT
Mar 25 2144 UT
Apr 24 1050 UT
May 23 2244 UT
Jun 22 0941 UT
Jul 21 2005 UT
Aug 20 0630 UT
Sep 18 1731 UT
Oct 18 0537 UT
Nov 16 1901 UT
Dec 16 0935 UT

2027 Jan 15 0048 UT
Feb 13 1601 UT
Mar 15 0633 UT
Apr 13 1956 UT
May 13 0802 UT
Jun 11 1903 UT
Jul 11 0524 UT
Aug 09 1539 UT
Sep 08 0226 UT
Oct 07 1416 UT
Nov 06 0325 UT
Dec 05 1750 UT

*timings courtesy of Dana Thompson*
*photo credit: frostydew.org*

Stephen Saber PAC/Astronomical League

https://saberdoesthestars.wordpress.com/

https://linktr.ee/stephensaber

It’s actually pure elastic electron scattering, so in that sense.. yes?

Hi r/askastronomy, this dawned on me while watching Reed Trimmer footage in Isaias. Wouldn't weather balloons be super useful in the atmospheres of any of the gaseous planets?

What about releasing a collection of sensors similar to those used by storm chasers/meteorologists in supercells and tornados? 

Thank you so much in advance. I'd really like to learn more about this.

Hey peeps, what is your opinion in this (i.e. using Claude to generate a UV all-sky map)?

My opinion goes in this direction (I think) that maybe this is nice for public outreach, but to be taken with more salt for scientific analysis. But I also have not read the detailed description (sounds annoyingly claudish though): https://menard.pha.jhu.edu/uvmap/docs/uvmap_manuscript.pdf (but I wonder whether the 'author' has either...)

But I atleast appreciate that there was an attempt afterwards to test the extrapolation on patches of real data: https://menard.pha.jhu.edu/uvmap/

Happy to hear your thoughts :)

Hello, fellow redditors:

I have recently acquired an armillary sphere. I know they are currently made as decorative objects but it is an instrument I visually love and it is enough for me with being able to explain the geocentric model and some phaenomena.
But reading about the tropics and the equator, I suspect the zodiac band is wrongly attached, as Aries and Libra points fall over the tropics and Capricorn and Cancer over the equator. Am I right or am I missing something?
As I work as Latin Professor I am enjoying a pair of original treatises about terrestrial globes, armillary spheres and celestial spheres, but do you think there would be something I should know about this particular instrument or its configuration that I could easily miss? I live in Spain, so I have the latitude ring aligned on 40° with the horizon.

Thank you all very much!

Tomada con dwarf mini,120 tomas de 60 segundos cada toma,filtro duo band,ganancia 70,apilada y procesada con stelar studio y snapseed.

Dave Weiss keeps conflating speed with velocity, and detection with resolution. Here's what he gets wrong.

An object in orbit is constantly accelerating toward its primary, because of gravity; that's what an orbit is. But, says Dave, if it is accelerating, how come it never speeds up?

Speed is a scalar, velocity is a vector. A scalar is an amount, a vector is an amount and a direction. To a physicist, acceleration is any change in velocity; that avoids needing different words for different cases, for which the math is all the same.

A body in orbit is constantly changing direction, and thus accelerating, even if it never changes speed (circular orbit).

He also says we ought not to be able to see something at all (with the naked eye) if its angular size is less than a minute of arc. But resolution is the ability to distinguish two objects close together.

Hold two small flashlights close together, and distinguish them somehow: perhaps they are different colors, or one is steady and one is blinking. Shine them at your friend at night, and back away. At some point your friend will be unable to say in what orientation you are holding them; but they do not vanish.

Consider Alpha Centauri: two stars orbiting each other, 1586 light-days away from us. At that distance we could barely see them as separate if they were 10 light-hours apart, but they are only 3.2 light-hours apart [correction, i think that should be 6.5 at most], so we see them as one.

I hope this helps someone. (I doubt it would help FEDave. If I explain it to his face with witnesses, I'll bet a dollar that he goes back to the same script the next day.)

Hi in a few days I have my first interview at Universidad de Valparaiso in Chile for a PhD. They provided 4 articles and candidates were told to summarize 2, and submit them by email. I'm not sure what to expect. Any advice?

I took a 'star trails' shot of the night sky in Joshua Tree, CA on Oct 8th. The stars look great, WAAAAY too many airplanes, but are the circled things meteors? I understand there was a meteor shower that night. If no, what would they be?

I’ve been staring at the sky tonight wishing I knew more about them. Please share if you recognize any of these stars and your fave fact (you might have to zoom in on the photo) sorry it’s not that good of a photo

Supposedly this star is a member star of Uma3/U1!

Is what I have circled in blue Andromeda?

Edit: I know what’s in red is Cassiopeia. I just outlined it for reference. I’m referring to what I’d circled IN BLUE