Texas Astrophotographer Shoots 1,500 Frames of the Moon to Keep Just 375

Texas Astrophotographer Shoots 1,500 Frames of the Moon to Keep Just 375

Adam Jackson didn't wing it. The Texas-based astrophotographer paired a Nikon Z8 with a Takahashi TSA-120 telescope and a Vernonscope Magic Dakin Barlow 2.4x magnifier, then captured 1,500 RAW frames of the Moon in a single session. His ruthless quality filter — sorting with PIPP software and keeping only the top 25% of frames — meant 1,125 images hit the trash before he ever opened AutoStakkert 4 to align and stack the survivors. Final processing happened in Photoshop. The images posted are all crops of that single composite photograph.

The result looks less like a snapshot and more like something a planetary probe would beam back. Jackson's workflow is a window into modern amateur astronomy: the hardware is high-end but commercially available, and the real differentiator is patience, process, and a willingness to discard most of what you captured in pursuit of the sharpest possible truth.

Gobble's Take: He threw away 1,125 photos so you could see one perfect Moon — that's either obsession or art, and honestly it might be both.

Source: r/astronomy

An iPhone 13 Pro on a Tripod Just Captured Two Galaxies at Once

No telescope. No observatory access. No thousands of dollars in glass. One astrophotographer mounted an iPhone 13 Pro on a tripod, dialed in a 30-second exposure, and came away with a single frame showing both the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy appearing side by side in the sky. The image drew immediate praise from the r/space community, with one commenter calling it "one of the most beautiful pics I've seen in recent times."

Andromeda — a full galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars, roughly 2.5 million light-years away — is actually the farthest object the human eye can see unaided on a clear night. Catching it alongside our own galaxy's arc, from a phone, in a single unedited exposure, is the kind of thing that makes you realize how much sky most of us ignore. The photographer is actively asking for tips to improve — which means this image was a first attempt.

Gobble's Take: The universe has been up there your whole life and your phone can see it — the only thing missing is a tripod and thirty seconds.

Source: r/space

The Moon Is Still Shrinking — and Scientists Just Found Over 1,000 New Cracks to Prove It

Researchers have mapped more than a thousand previously unknown tectonic ridges across the Moon's dark volcanic plains, according to findings reported by ScienceDaily in February 2026. These ridges are the surface signature of a Moon that is still slowly contracting as its interior cools — buckling its own crust the way a grape wrinkles into a raisin. This is not ancient geology. It is ongoing.

The discovery matters well beyond academic interest. As NASA's Artemis program and commercial partners work toward establishing long-duration lunar bases, ground stability becomes a life-safety question. A Moon that is still actively reshaping itself — generating moonquakes as its crust folds — is a Moon that requires engineers to think carefully about where, and on what, they build.

Gobble's Take: We're planning to build a base on the one rocky body in the solar system that is literally still wrinkling — the site survey just got a lot more interesting.

Source: ScienceDaily

Astronomers Think They Just Witnessed Two Planets Colliding

Astronomers think they may have just witnessed two planets colliding, according to ScienceDaily. A seemingly ordinary sun-like star suddenly began flickering wildly, puzzling scientists, in an observation reported on March 11, 2026.

Gobble's Take: Astronomers think they may have watched two planets collide. The universe does not wait for confirmation before being dramatic.

Source: ScienceDaily

Quick Hits

• China has nine reusable rockets in development simultaneously: A deep-dive into global reusable launch vehicles finds China fielding more reusable rocket programs at once than any other nation, driven by government subsidies and preferential policies similar to those that shaped its solar and EV industries. Risk & Progress
• True Anomaly raises $650M for space interceptors: The defense-focused space startup closed a round valuing it at $2.2 billion to advance orbital interceptor vehicles. CyclopsSpaceTech
• Falcon Heavy flies for first time in 18 months: SpaceX's heavy-lift rocket returned to flight, delivering the ViaSat-3 F3 communications satellite to geostationary orbit. CyclopsSpaceTech

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