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Jörg Altheimer

@jaltheimer.bsky.social

230 followers 170 following 80 posts

Computer scientist and entrepreneur. Working on archeometallurgy. Physics and spaceflight is my passion though. Mostly posting #Astrophotography stuff here.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 12

Not only where the nights extremely short like every summer, the weather also didn't want to play nice for #Astrophotography this year. Which means I wont get any more time on the targets I had selected this year. But I did get a few h on the Lagoon Nebula, despite it being insanely low in the sky.

Lagoon Nebula in the southern Sky. Large hydrogen region imaged with a modified Canon EOS 700D on a 130mm Newton telescope. I used an Astronomik UHC filter to cut through some of the light pollution. ~125 2 minute subexposures for a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes of integration time.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · 15d

Still no clear weather in sight, so here are a few more fly agaric from my local forest.

#mushroom

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · 23d

Had a quick glimpse between the clouds on comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) in Canes Venatici well after sunset. Composite of around 3 minutes worth of 1 second untracked images.
#Astrophotography

Comet Lemmon in the evening hours of October 18th.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Oct 9

An other fly agaric growing in my local forest, while I'm waiting for a clear sky.
#mushroom

Fly agaric in a spuce forest, growing out of the mossy ground.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Oct 6

More mushrooms from a local forest. The damp weather really helps them grow very fast.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Oct 6

As expected from this season, its cloudy and no stars in sight. But on the other hand mushroom season is in full swing.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 22

I'd really wanted to get an other 3 to 4 hours of images to enhance the finer details in the nebula but with bad weather in the forecast and October/November ahead its unlikely I get an other chance this year. Especially with only two good hours a night for this target in ideal conditions.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 22

The Helix Nebula or Caldwell 63 is a planertary nebula in the constellation Aquarius. When it comes to planetary nebulas, it's apparent size is extremely large and its features and structures become visible even in mid sized telescopes. Making it a very interesting #Astrophotography target.

Helix Nebula imaged with a Canon EOS 700d on a 130mm Newton telescope. I used an Astronomik UHC filter for better contrast due to low elevation from the horizon. The image is composed from roughly 160 two minute exposures, stacked to create an image with about 5h30min total integration time.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 12

I'm not going to lie, A Questar is a really nice telescope. Both in terms of quality and as a piece of art.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 11

Definitely not ideal. Better would be a 200mm edgeHD with a small pixel planetary camera or something similar, but that's what I had available and it works pretty well.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 11

Of course.
I was using a 130/650mm Newton with two barlow lenses stacked for a total of ~3500mm focal length. Tracked but unguided with a Skywatcher HEQ5 pro and imaged with a Canon EOS 250d. A bit overkill, but thats the configuration I used on Saturn right next to it.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 10

Yes. But none of them are named stars. That particular one is a mag 15 star in the Gaia DR2 catalog. But there are also a few artefacts from the camera sensor that survived the stacking, since I used less than 10 pictures for this one.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 10

Neptune and it's moon Triton(which might actually be a captured dwarf planet) in the early morning hours of 6th September.
10 second exposures at f27 where just enough to make Triton visible without resulting in trailing lights.
#Astrophotography

Neptune and its moon Triton through Telescope at 3500mm focal length.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 7

Besides the planets there is of course the Moon as a bright target. I tried to utilize the full width and length of an APS-C sensor by using a 2x telecentric barlow. The cropped in images should provide full resolution of some regions.
#Astrophotography

Moon through a 130/650mm Newton telescope with Canon EOS 250d. 15 images stacked to reduce atmospheric wobble and processed in Siril.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Sep 6

While Deep Space has to take a back seat in #Astrophotography during the current Moon phase, I'm trying to squeeze out every last bit out of my Deep Space Rig for planetary imaging.
Here is Saturn through my 130mm Newton and Canon EOS 250d.

Saturn as photographed through a small telescope.
Processing with Autostakkert and Siril.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 20

Those are really great shots. And looking at the telescope used I am not surprised that I was barely able to image it at all

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 20

Visibility should be much better in November. Sky conditions might be tricky though in my area.
Good luck.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 19

To highlight the position in the Image.
It's very faint but definitely in the correct position. Captured on the 18th August 2025 around 20:15 UTC.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 19

Not a typical #Astrophotography target, but I really really wanted to try and see if can at least capture a glimpse of the interstellar comet #3I/Atlas shortly after sundown and just before it vanished below the horizon. Challanging with a 130mm newton and a reg. DSLR but it might just have worked.

3I/Atlas in a ~20 minute exposure in the constellation Scorpio with a 130mm Newton and Canon EOS 750d DSLR.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 18

Supernova SN 2025rbs in the galaxy NGC7331 from yesterdays short #Astrophotography session.
My personal first for a type 1a Supernova (The bright spot right next to the galactic nucleus).

Type 1a Supernova SN 2025rbs in NGC7331. Imaged with a Canon EOS 750d on a 130mm Newton Telescope.

Reposted by Jörg Altheimer

ESO @eso.org · Aug 18

As the Milky Way band appears to pour into our ELT, the cranes around it seem to do the same while they further advance the telescope 🏗️ 🔭

Once complete, the ELT will be breaking down the light above in unparalleled detail.

More: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2533a/ 🧪
📷 C. Letelier/ESO

The open metallic dome of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) at the centre of the picture, taking up the lower half of the frame. At the top, like a river the Milky Way band horizontally pours into the ELT. The construction site of the ELT is surrounded by cranes

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 16

Thanks.

Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 16

The second picture of this summers #Astrophotography targets.
The Trifid Nebula M20. As with M8 I didn't have nearly as much time as I wanted due to bad weather and short nights, but it is still quite a sight, even at relatively low exposure time.

Trifid Nebula M20 imaged with a Canon EOS 700d on a 130mm Newton Telescope. I used an Astronomic UHC filter to cut through some of the light pollution.

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Jörg Altheimer @jaltheimer.bsky.social · Aug 12

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Reposted by Jörg Altheimer

ESO @eso.org · Jul 21

Our VLT may have made intriguing discoveries in the surroundings of young stars:

➡️ A planet candidate inside a disc spiral (image 1)
➡️ A planet or brown dwarf candidate forming through gravitational instability (image 2)

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2513/

🔭 🧪

The fuzzy, yellow outline of a spiral shape. It glows more strongly towards the bottom right of the spiral, and close to the centre of the spiral, on it's right hand side, is a particular spot of light that has been circled in white to highlight it. This is the possible location of a new exoplanet candidate. The very centre of this spiral is completely black, having been removed by the instrument that took this picture.

Against a backdrop of complete darkness, two glowing spots of light can be seen in the middle of this image. At the very centre, a bright orange point of light is surrounded by three rings of orange material, which vary in thickness as they get further from the central point. Below these glowing rings, and slightly to the right, is a faint orange smudge that has been circled in white to highlight its presence. This is the possible companion found around the central star.

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Reposted by Jörg Altheimer

ESO @eso.org · Jul 17

Astronomers pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star.

🎬 Discover more with the latest episode of #ChasingStarlight ICYMI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j-MH6_QlBA

Full story: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2512/

🔭 🧪

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